[UK-CONTEST] Decline in 2m contest activity

[Paul_group]

Paul O'Kane wrote:
 > ----- Original Message ----- From: "Ray James" <gm4cxm at yahoo.co.uk>
 >
 > ...
 >
 >> A contact is a contact, contest or no contest.
 >
 > Wrong!

 >
 > It's not quite the same with contesting.  There are rules
 > which impose constraints.  In general, single-operators are expected 
to find the DX, as well as work it, all by
 > themselves. For both single-op and multi-op, pre-arranged
 > skeds are out,

Which suggests that you have never tried to operate on the upper UHF 
bands or the lower uWave bands. Contest or no.. without some form of 
sked or talk back its hard to imagine a successful event on 23cm or 
13cm. That's one of the biggest problems with 70cm and up contests for 
me in the far west. I can easily work stuff on 2m without skeds and 
_move_ stations up through 70 and 23 / 13 which is perfectly reasonable 
and proper. On the other hand if I have to start the process off on 70cm 
its almost impossible to get the rest of the UK (let alone EU) to beam 
my way.

I won't break the rules by making skeds so I've given up on these events 
(from home) as they are fruitless.

That's why I don't have an issue with skeds in UHF contests. I still 
have a big issue with parallel real time chat.

You cannot apply HF logic to this it just demonstrates a lack of 
understanding.

  as also are those arranged (at any time)
 > by any means other than RF on the bands and/or modes
 > corresponding to their entry class.
 >
 > In general (perhaps I'm optimistic), HF contesters
 > understand this and stick to the rules.

That does not seem to be the tone of recent posts on the cq-contest 
reflector, far from it!


It seems to me
 > that some VHF contesters are economical with adherence
 > to the rules,

And that is unacceptable.. but not what is being reported here, UK VHF 
contesters here are simply saying that they can no longer be as 
competitive without  chat rooms and cluster, ergo they are not using 
them, there is no suggestion that anyone is breaking the rules that have 
been imposed.

Whether I agree with skeds in UHF contests and violently disagree with 
the use of chat rooms is irrelevant - I am not suggesting that UK VHF 
contesters are cheating!

What I'm saying is that the long term use of real time parallel chat 
seems to have relaxed ethical standards to a point that I can't accept.. 
that's my call!

and consider it fair game to arrange
 > skeds by any means at their disposal - after all, isn't
 > everyone else doing it?


Well.. it seems that everyone in EU is doing "it" because its not 
against their rules, which is making UK contesters who *might* win at a 
disadvantage, whether I agree or not I can understand their frustration.


 >
 > No contest QSO is valid in the context of rule-breaking.
 > Sure, the QSO happened, but that's not enough to guarantee
 > its validity.

Well of course not, if anyone here wanted to cheat they could do so, 
undetected and probably would be sitting quietly in the background 
here.. but they aren't.

Maybe, just maybe, and I'm just theorising here, *if* the rule were 
removed and chats / skeds were allowed, those that want to work that way 
could do so and those like me who don't want to use chat rooms could 
carry on but benefit from increased activity? Separating the categories 
might allow me to compete equally and return some of the enjoyment..

If the UK VHF Contesters took the moral high ground in the chat room and 
  behaved impeccably that self policing action might mentor some of the 
regular chat users to behave ethically ... to the benefit of all.

Am I changing my mind.. nah! but its another point of view.



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