[UK-CONTEST] Newbie Contesters

[Martin Snow]

By the ‘eck, aren’t we lucky!

A good burst of GB7HQ last weekend and everybody is coming
out of the woodwork telling all how we should encourage newbies to partake of
contesting!

OK Richard, I thought we were talking HF here, but thanks
anyway.

I may have an old, and personal, c/s but I’m quite new to
this contesting business. I’ve only been doing AFS for about 5 or 6 years,
gradually coming into the more complex contests recently. I suspect this is only
because I like CW and we are short on CW ops round here.

A lot of very good points have been made by our most
experienced contesters. Only one person hit the nail on the head, in my view.

Taking the simple approach, and that of a complete newbie.
He/she has not enough knowledge & experience to have bought the right
complex equipment to enter the special contests suggested. The RSGB CCs were
designed to replace the QRS Cumulatives, and are the least complicated of the
present contests on offer.  But the
present system imposes an immediate limitation on a complete newbie. This is
the Cabrillo file entry.  Even if the
newbie has the wit to find out what a Cabrillo file is, he/she needs a computer
to log.

If, it is as you are all saying – that you want to encourage
the newest and most basic Fundamental/Intermediate licensee to join in the
contesting fray, then he/she will have only the most basic equipment (maybe
only home-brewed TX & Rx [ideally ! ]) and quite possibly not computer
logging.

I suggest that the present contests are fine. But a new
section be added on to the CCs, whereby the newbies can enter a basic paper log,
with perhaps only 5 QSOs therein, and for which he/she receives a certificate
to show that he/she has entered a contest!

A certificate dropping, unexpectedly, on the door-mat will
do more to boost the morale and confidence than anything else. It doesn’t even
have to be a certificate, a simple letter, welcoming the entrant to the world
of contesting would do.

When dealing with newbies, the old adage applies – KISS –
Keep It Simple Stupid!

One point I would make though, is that I think the simplest
of contests, the CCs, are being hi-jacked by the ‘serious’ contesters. There
are some thumping great signals there, and some very fast CW!  I hope the ‘serious’ guys will forgive me for
suggesting that the CCs need to be kept as the simplest of contests, to fulfil
your wish, to encourage new and unsophisticated contesters upcoming.

73 de Martin, gw3prl. Anglesey.  (EU124 ex!)


_________________________________________________________________
Invite your Facebook friends to chat on Messenger
http://clk.atdmt.com/UKM/go/101719649/direct/01/