[UK-CONTEST] 80m CC contests et al ad inf

[Roger Cooke]

Hi Y'all.

   This would be a very good debate to have at the HFC and will no doubt be discussed over coffee or lunch.
The first and prime objective of anyone entering is to HAVE FUN.  If you are not doing that, it is probably 
time to do something else!

  Contests are by their very nature a desire to be top dog, head of the list, a WINNER!  But, taking part in 
itself is enough for most, so long may the CC contests continue.

 We have discussed the "Club" angle for some time at Norwich. We are lucky in that we have a lot of members
but unfortunately most are the newby types, most of whom have not operated on HF, know no CW, never used
data modes and need a lot of training. With my pushing of the GB2CW Morse tuition, we now have a number 
who are using CW. We have training for N1MM too and help get new ops on to Data. So, we have gradually made
our way up to 4th place, something of which we are quite proud. We have no operators spread all over the UK,
or in France ( sorry Dennis! ) to help us. Some points have been brought up that could be considered as most
controversial from several aspects though.  Take the following for example.

1   Joining forces to make a Contest Club.  As we have less than 15% membership of our club genuinely interested
in operating contests - and indeed quite a number of club members viciously anti-contest - we had considered 
joining forces with the Bittern Group, also in Norfolk. If you take a look at our combined scores, that would put us
in a nice position. However, that was discarded as we considered that unethical and not within the spirit of the contests.

2  Running a linear. What????  We do have suspicions that this goes on. The only time I use one is in the AFS and
the top band CW test.

3  Running a list operation. I know this goes on as I have experience it myself. It happens on SSB, a list of Club members
who are to call a station in sequence making those huge numbers in a very short period of time.

4  Running SO2R.  This happens in the CC contests and others, so should those using it enter in a separate category?
    Or should it be banned?

5  Getting on the band at around lunch-time to "book" your frequency!  It helps, especially if you have a good site/signal/op
   on a run.  It then becomes almost mandatory for us lesser mortals to use S&P as there are no clear freqs left.

6  Deliberate QRM from those NOT in the contest.  I have also had that, with SSTV signals on 3727, AFTER I had been
using that freq for some time in run mode. Deliberate carriers/ weird data sounds sweeping the freqs, some high power 
users obviously running linears causing hassle just because they do not like "contests on THEIR band".

   All the above are difficult to enforce, check, or even rule into the contests, so perhaps we should treat it like a football
league, those top notch ops being bribed to run for one "Contest Club" and the rest of us taking our chances.    Please 
don't think I am complaining at all, because I still like the CC contests and I still think that by pushing for new ops in 
the "Club" and training them we can still maintain our position or do even better and that would give more satisfaction
anyway. That is what it's all about really, so ENJOY!  Or go and dig the garden!





 
Regards from Roger, G3LDI
Swardeston, Norfolk.