[UK-CONTEST] 21/28mhz RSGB Contest

[tim.trew at btinternet.com]

Brian 5B4AIZ wrote:
>Bad cndx or not Uk support was dreadful, maybe it's time this contest was ditched.
>If you are promoting an event and show no enthusiasm for it is it any wonder it 
>creates no interest abroad? 

I agree that something should be done, but if we ditched all of the specialist contests that had low support, there may not be many left. We need to find a way of making them more popular.

I believe:
1. That it is particularly important to have this contest at this point in the solar cycle to encourage people to use the band. I had hardly worked 21MHz in years and was surprised what I worked - around the peak, people will use it naturally.
2. Most of the CW stations were pretty weak with me, so I'm not sure that I could have had any SSB QSOs
3. The contest currently needs many UK stations to be calling CQ to generate activity. 
4. I assume that there are a lot of people like me whose CW skills aren't (yet!) up to the 25-30WPM needed to be able to make CQ calls (where an instant response is needed to the stations that reply), but who can piece together a callsign eventually from someone else calling CQ, and so depend on others calling CQ (I don't wish to debate on the merits of this situation, and I find that working in CW contests is a big motivator for improving myself). 

Given the above, and looking at how other contests address this:
- Some, like the Scandinavian AC, increase the geographic range (beyond a single country) that can be worked by others
- Some, like the YO DX HF Contest (http://www.yodx.ro/en/hf-contest/rules), allows any station to work any other, but gives a huge advantage to working stations from the organising country through more points/QSO and country-specific multipliers.

Since it's not obvious what large grouping we would pick, without turning it into another WAE contest, the second style seems a good way forward. The YO contest attracted huge support, and this is all the more important on the higher bands at this point in the solar cycle. 

Are there any disadvantages to this proposal that I have overlooked?

73, Tim, G8JXV