[UK-CONTEST] Entry levels in VHF Contests

[Ray James]

On the surface is does look very encouraging indeed.

An RSGB board meeting would delighted to receive these details from Don and believe everything is absolutely rosey in the VHF and above garden.
However, the expression "never mind the quality, feel the width" comes to mind when you do not concentrate on the statistics but look at the details that generated them.
Roger's statistics show a genuine overview using 2006 as a base. I believe the general concern is what is continuing to occur to this day from a lot further back in time.
The flaw to be found behind the superb statistics can be viewed and understood by spending a few minutes looking at the VHFCC "Claimed Scores" pages/tables for 2008 and 2007 contests. What becomes immediately obvious considering the time duration of a contest is that some folk submitting details are not actually competing but simply putting a entry in to say they have supported the event or like to see their callsign in a result table even if it's only for having made 1 qso in an event last 6 or 24 hours. The problem is, these entries still become part of Roger's statistics and therefore give a false indication of real activity and health of the competitive side of VHF/UHF and Microwave contesting.
Many of the entries provide the honest input that they only came on to give some points away for an hour or so and this is to be applauded but in the past folk who came on to give points away did just that, they didn't go to the trouble of submitting an entry. In particular for only a handful of contacts worked in an hour or less in an event possibly lasting 24 hours.
I believe much of the reason for this is that the VHFCC have become a victim of their own success with the superb on-line entry system which is a pleasure to use if you've only made a small number of contacts. My 12 contacts in last Tuesday's 1.2GHz UKAC took a minimal amount of time to submit and then have automatically included on the sites "claimed scores" page. Contest logging programs also make life easy for email submission.
In the past when Royal Mail was the method of entry, folk giving points away or not seriously entering a contest would not go to the trouble submitting and hence wouldn't have become part of any statistics other than the most important one.....ACTIVITY.
The most important and definitely "negative" statistic that can be gleaned from results past and present is the reduced number of both actual competitive contest participants and stations worked. This gives a true indication of the health of use within the VHF, UHF and Microwave spectrum, in particular ahead of Cavtat.
  
For those who cannot be bothered looking at the VHFCC "Claimed Score" pages for 2007/2008 then here is a taster. The first number is the maximum number worked by an entrant and the second number is the lowest number worked by an entrant.

2007
March 144/432   144 = 341/11, 432 = 157/1
Marconi   233/15
144 UKAC 126/2, 125/1, 124/2, 131/2, 113/2, 94/1, 154/7, 172/4, 124/2, 108/6, 104/1.

2008
144 Trophy  780/4
March 144/432  340/3
432 Trophy 198/6
70MHz Cumulatives 46/2, 48/1, 47/5, 35/4.
50MHz Trophy 449/8
144 low Power 96/2
NFD 6m = 200/7, 4m = 84/15, 2m = 495/8, 70cm = 164/3, 23cm = 103/1.


73 Ray GM4CXM

           





--- On Thu, 18/9/08, G3RIR <g3rir at yahoo.com> wrote:
From: G3RIR <g3rir at yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: [UK-CONTEST] [VHFTEST] Entry levels in VHF Contests
To: vhf-contests at blacksheep.org, "'UK Contest Reflector'" <uk-contest at contesting.com>
Date: Thursday, 18 September, 2008, 7:05 AM

Roger,

 

That does indeed seem very encouraging.

 

Are you able, easily, to remove the UKAC figures and show what the trend is
without them?

 

73

 

Neil, G3RIR

 

  _____  

From: owner-vhf-contests at blacksheep.org
[mailto:owner-vhf-contests at blacksheep.org] On Behalf Of Roger Dixon
Sent: 18 September 2008 06:53
To: 'UK Contest Reflector'; vhf-contests at blacksheep.org
Subject: [VHFTEST] Entry levels in VHF Contests

 

Gentlemen

I have watched the debate about falling activity in VHF contests with
interest.  As most of you know, I have acted as the focus for all VHF
entries for the last two and a half years.  While it could be argued that
the total numbers of entries received does not not necessarily reflect the
activity levels in specific events, the number of entries has shown a very
healthy rise over the last two years.

 

The numbers below show the percentage rise in the monthly entries received
taking 2006 as the baseline:

 

Month                2006            2007            2008

January                0                 +41%          +47%  

February              0                  +43%          +86%

March                  0                 +33%           +63%

April                    0                  +55%          +99%

May                    0                   +27%          +86%  

June                    0                  +15%          +28% 

July                     0                  +27%          +70%

August                0                   +5%           +32%

September           0                   +38%         

October                0                   +16%

November            0                   +30% 

December            0                   +65% 

 

In pure number terms:

Entries January to August 2006        1244

Entries January to August 2007        1589

Entries January to August 2008        2000

 

While I'm sure this will encourage the statisticians amongst you to debate
this, I'm sure that you will all agree that there is a very encouraging
trend in these figures.

 

Roger - G4BVY

RSGB Contests Committee

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