[UK-CONTEST] Decline in 2m contest activity

[Paul_group]

Chris Tran GM3WOJ wrote:
> Hello all

> Sorry to disagree with my old friend Ray GM4CXM and my new friend Jiri 
> M0ITY, but I think the VHFCC were quite correct to restrict the use of the 
> ON4KST chat-room - 

And I agree :-)

I used the KST service and it helped me make many QSO's ethically and 
fairly... but I began to realise that there was something quite wrong.

Personally I don't have any real issue with skeds during contests but I 
have a big problem with parallel real time communications such as chat 
rooms. To answer Jiri's comment about old hands not being willing to 
change - this old hand is willing to change.. provided that change is 
for the better.

Some examples:

The turning point for me was when I was asked to run a mini expedition. 
At that time IO72 was a frequent request in the MWS surveys. I went to 
operate in the Persides shower from IO72. So whilst it would have been 
easy to have gprs connection and thus have cluster and KST I couldn't be 
bothered, everyone knew where I was going and everyone knew what 
frequency I'd be using.. I was going to be a substantial signal so there 
would be no need for any assistance. But wait... the qso rate was rather 
poor!

Then one day it clicked ... assistance ... that's not really right is 
it? without assistance my qso rate was lower...

I then began to watch the exchanges on KST more closely, each party knew 
each others location (QRA) everyone knows its either 59(9) or 26 / r26 
and by saying "hows it going, not bad here we just worked or 301st qso" 
we now know the next contest serial.. blimey is there anything left to 
exchange on air????

Sorry, that's just not for me!

with the best will in the world, the temptation to
> correct incorrectly copied QSO information must be almost impossible to 
> resist. 

I had a CW contest qso with a station that I thought was complete - at 
1200Km I was very pleased, only I was asked by the other station in real 
time via KST .. "sorry we didn't get your serial, can you re send it?" I 
re sent the entire exchange which meant a "successful qso" everything 
was passed on air so all was ethical... but wait... if I'd not been 
prompted on the KST chat , that QSO would have failed, I would have been 
NIL with the other station. I'd have been disappointed but that's the 
way it goes. So lets be honest, it wasn't a QSO was it!

Sorry, that's just not for me!

Sorry guys, but this is a radio hobby, not an internet hobby.  For
> years VHF and UHF DXing/weak-signal QSOs worked well with just an radio + 
> amp + antenna + CQ to solicit QSOs - why should it be any different in 2008 
> ?
>

And in those days a number of "on the edge" QSO's failed, ones that got 
away! we laughed about those in the pub afterwards while cursing that 
qsb or that qrm. Today with KST chat almost every qso is successful. Is 
that really a sign of technical or operator improvement?


 > The decline in 2m contest activity has 2 facets - firstly - where are 
 > the 10W/100W + 8ele yagi brigade, who were the 'bread and butter' 
(aka > 'cannon fodder'!) of the portables in the 1980s and early 1990s ?

On HF working the world with a dipole? well if we ever see another 
sunspot maybe :-)

I now find that if I'm active during an entire 24hr vhf contest there is 
virtually no one to work for most of the time. The "dx" know full well 
that they only need to beam to the UK for 2 hours on Sunday morning to 
work all of the active UK stations so the rest of the time they beam to 
OK / DL where they will be met by some activity - who can blame them.

Unless we promote some inter UK activity for the duration this won't 
change. All that will happen is the few big stations on the UK east 
coast will continue struggling into EU for the duration and those of us 
further west or north will continue to concentrate effort on contest 
where we can do well (or at least not get bored)



-- 
73 de Paul GW8IZR IO73TI
http://www.gw8izr.com