[UK-CONTEST] The G0MTN Christmas message (long)

[Lee Volante]

Hi all,



As I've done several times now, I thought I would summarise my contesting 
year and the highs, lows and trends for the future. In the main I refrain 
from posting to this list, for various reasons which I'll mention later. So 
please excuse the length of this email which will try to condense 2010 into 
a couple of minutes worth of reading.  Hopefully no-one these days is paying 
exorbitant per-byte amounts to read these messages. Actually I've been 
jotting down some thoughts over the last couple of weeks as various 
contesting topics have been discussed on-line.  I think it's still rather 
early for a 'Christmas' message, but we are in (freezing, snowy) December 
now and this list has been quite lively with very positive post-CQ WW CW 
contest messages in the last few days so I thought it may be a good time to 
send this out now.



The first half of the year was quite busy with the usual RSGB and non-RSGB 
contests. Three contests on January 1st were followed by a fairly serious go 
at the ARRL RTTY Roundup.  Very much through luck rather than skill or 
judgement I did better than I've ever done in both 80m AFS events, as 
neither station nor operator was improved over the previous years.



CQ 160, UBA, ARRL DX, as well as the usual forays into the 80m CC and 144 
UKAC followed.  March and April were quieter, with some part time weekend 
operations interspersed with the midweek 90 minute contests. My log shows I 
had a go at WPX CW along with many other UK entrants, as well as the Yuri 
Gagarin and Kazakhstan contests which may not be so well known to many of 
you.



Then things started to get a little quieter, with an entry in VHF NFD with 
my local club, and a solo mixed mode effort for the full 24 hours in the 
IARU contest the only things to shout about in July. I was part time for a 
few hours in IOTA following a family birthday party. As there was no chance 
of winning, for a change I started to call 'CQ' instead of hunt for the 
higher-point multipliers. As expected I rattled off more QSOs than I 
normally manage, but with a pitiful overall score. It was fun, and at least 
helped prove that my earlier 'S+P for IOTA' strategies for my home station 
were largely correct.



Then there was a break from radio of almost three months, which I think hasn't 
happened in the previous 20 odd years. The reason for this was getting 
married, and all of the organising and arranging needed before and after the 
big day.  There was little time or motivation for getting on the air. My #1 
position on the contestrank.com activity ranking is definitely now up for 
grabs. Hopefully Nico PA0MIR has a great chance to take the top spot after 
what may have been a frustrating time at #2 for a while.



I came back to the bands for a M/2 CQ WW SSB entry with the M9X team in the 
Midlands. Despite high hopes and some new, more ambitious antennas, Murphy 
came to visit. High winds caused antennas to swivel and rotate in axes they 
were not meant to. Wire antennas became caught and would not resonate. 
Logging PCs decided to expire. With operators also succumbing to illness and 
other emergency commitments, a winning score wasn't on the cards that 
weekend. However, more points and QSOs were made over the weekend than ever 
before, so there were many positive things to take away. I had some good 
runs, with the "Last 10" meter hitting 400+ and nearing 200 for a clock 
hour.  I was to be found with camera phone pointing at the screen, trying to 
record the numbers for posterity!



Just last weekend I've had a go at CQ WW CW from home, with an all band low 
power CW entry. The wire antennas were moved and raised another couple of 
feet, which I don't think made a difference. But it was a relief to have 
three way guying for a change, just in case the wind blew.  The 1900+ QSO 
total was an all time best, but mults were still lacking as usual. For once 
40m provided my best multiplier score by band. This was still a far cry from 
last year's activity with the awe-inspiring K3LR team, but still good fun 
and a challenge.  Everywhere I read, last weekends contest has generated 
fun, excitement and adventures in equal amounts both from those making 
record scores in exotic climes to those trying to keep warm in UK suburbia.



Not contesting every week made me look forward to the event more, and I was 
certainly motivated to make the most of my time on-air. The 144 MHz AFS will 
be next as a regular fixture on my contesting calendar, and it will be 
interesting to see what effect the new AFS Super League will have.  Perhaps 
there will be some more ARRL 10m or 9A contest fun before Christmas 
activities take me away from the radio. The second half of the year has seen 
more contest apathy, but overall there were still around 60 entries and 
12,000+ QSOs.



With the wedding plans, and some new challenges at work, I had to 
reprioritise and put contesting low down on the pecking order - it is only a 
hobby after all, right?  I've also stepped down from the RSGB Contest 
Committee after over a decade, largely due to my lack of free time and 
enthusiasm. I've also been trying to step down from writing the CDXC 
Contests column but have had no volunteers so far.  I also stood down from 
the 2010 GR2HQ team due to what I'll politely call 'creative differences' 
between different people concerning the style of the operation.



On the one hand, this is meant to be a 'fun hobby', but given the investment 
in time and monetary terms that many people put into it, it's sadly 
inevitable that differing opinions arise that can escalate. I've seen 
individuals, groups and committees be simply unable to discuss certain hot 
topics in a calm, rational manner. I've had people ask me for my opinion, 
only for me to struggle to get a word in edgeways as they try to enforce 
their viewpoint upon me.  Several times I've sat on my hands as folks have 
made comments I knew to be hypocritical or just plain wrong.  As a result I've 
started to think about tinkering with QRP kits, and start listening for 
satellites and the ISS.  It felt good to get away from the politics, 
complaints and sheer hard work that contesting was starting to feel like. 
The educational and entertainment parts felt like they were slipping away.



So whilst I haven't done very much to write home about, I thought I would 
also share my thoughts on what's happened here on UK-Contest, and in 
Contesting in the UK over the course of the year.



For UK-Contest, have a look back yourself here to refresh your memory:

http://lists.contesting.com/pipermail/uk-contest/



January kicked off with many posts about warming up the band for the 80m CC 
contests, which morphed into discussion on ethics, radio clubs versus 
contest groups and the perception of funding between them.  During the next 
few months the most replied to threads were where we considered the 
different QSLing practices adopted by contesters, what phonetics we should 
use, had a whine (or two) about some RSGB rules and meeting outcomes.  There 
was a flurry of activity for the WRTC event and IOTA in July.  The 21/28 and 
Club Calls contests were debated towards the end of the year, as well as 
when we should officially stop operating at the end of a contest.  Does 
anyone remember what we'd been talking about?   Did it bring about much 
tangible change or better understanding?



Interspersed between were some genuine requests for help and 'top tips' 
which are always handy and a good reminder of the excellent resources and 
expertise there are reading the list.  The few recent messages about "Happy 
Contesting" and the joys of simply participating, improving on previous 
scores and some friendly local rivalry in the mid-table placings I think 
have been my favourite.



2010 was a WRTC year, and the Russian organisers excelled themselves.  The 
UK was fortunate to have entrants, referees and representation on the 
judging panel. This is good news and shows the level of expertise, 
commitment and respect there are for our contesters.  Andy G4PIQ did a great 
job of qualifying over the last few years, and the strategy and operating 
skill shown by Andy and Dave G4BUO in the heat of the Russian field paid off 
with a record top-10 finish. The event organisation was superb, and the idea 
to move the stations to the field to remove any differences in location 
worked out very well. The enthusiasm from an army of Russian volunteers, 
many travelling thousands of kilometres to assist and be part of the event 
was unprecedented.  If only this "ham-spirit" could be bottled and stored 
for the future.



Elsewhere on the Internet, I see that this year UK stations have appeared on 
the K1TTT post-contest "spotting report", where suspicion is raised over 
self-spotting malpractices, and similarly there has been a UK station 
(accidentally or otherwise) misclaim an unassisted operation for a CQ WW 
contest.  There may be innocent reasons for these, but let's try to prevent 
it going forward?



We've had the introduction of individual Short Contest Callsigns in the 
year, but perhaps not a great deal of activity resulting from most of them, 
with the greatest activity likely to be in the recent CQ WW contests. I've 
aired my club's SCC in a couple of HF, and one VHF contest, which is perhaps 
more activity than many SCC's have seen this year, but when I last checked 
this was insufficient to retain use of it in future years. Oh well.



After browsing through UK-Contest, next have a look through the RSGB HF 
contest results:  http://www.rsgbcc.org/hf/results/results.shtml



Whilst there are some very understandable reasons that the more experienced 
contester should be able to win, or perhaps those who are able to afford 
more real estate and hence put up higher, resonant antennas away from 
sources of local QRM, the actual results do seem to give a message.  There 
are very few winners of HF events where the winner has been licensed less 
than 25 years.  Expanding this to the Top 5 or 10 often doesn't make things 
better.  We can see a few in the Low Power contest, some very few and far 
between 80m CC entries (excluding QRP entries), and the 21/28 has seen some 
occasional winners. The Commonwealth Contest saw a welcome exception this 
year with a G6PZ-powered GI0RTN rewarded with stewardship of a rosebowl for 
12 months.



I described the issue at the first Contest Committee meeting of the year, 
using a recent 80m CC contest as an example where only a single entrant in 
the Top 40 places (yes, forty) in the main 100w section was licensed in the 
last 25 years.  I'll return to the 80m CC later.



We often see in RadCom or reported on-line about new contesters making their 
first entries.  A lot of these seem to disappear afterwards, which I guess 
is only to be expected, as initial enthusiasm and interest can fade after a 
little experience. I'm starting to wonder if I can name more contesters 
going SK or QRT than I can new ones who are *consistently* taking part.  The 
most visible groups giving newer operators a chance to operate from bigger 
stations are M4A and G6PZ. We see some newer operators taking part in Field 
Days, and it's good to see these entries growing from the RadCom reports.



>From a random trawl of websites and blogs written by our newer licensees, it 
would seem that HF PSK operating makes for easier, more pleasant and 
rewarding QSOs.  The newest licensees are active, and some excelling, 
becoming leading lights with digital modes, SOTA, QRP portable operation, 
but few challenge the 'G3 / G4' dominance of HF contesting. Putting up 
reasonably effective VHF antennas would appear to be easier than those for 
HF.  Indeed, the increase in entries for the VHF/UHF UKAC series sees a much 
even spread of newer and older licensees.  I still see that the growth in 
the Tuesday evening events hasn't spilled over more into the weekend VHF 
events.



There are many hundreds of people who subscribe to, or read the UK-Contest 
reflector. Yet mostly it is the same few dozen individuals who post to the 
list. The vast majority of these are "old hands." Several of these folks 
have opinions about contest rules or etiquette, and in an attempt to 
influence popular opinion or perhaps the Contest Committee, post their 
views. But to really get the message home, they need to post and repost 
effectively the same thing over and over again. It becomes tedious. It 
becomes possible to predict what responses a certain comment will bring. 
Contester A doesn't like certain VHF contest rules and repeatedly said so. 
Contester B doesn't like certain elements of the Internet being used for 
contesting.  Contester C thinks his location should still qualify for a 
particular IOTA group.  Contester D thinks there should be contest sections 
for people who have a tower, but no linear amplifier, or a stack of antennas 
and no amplifier. Contester E can be replied upon to promptly respond when 
there is a small mistake detected on the Contest Committee website. 
Contester F reminds us that he does very well in contests, which seems to 
add little to any of the discussions, but presumably makes him feel better.



What frustrates me is that very often complaints and scenarios offered are 
very specific to those making them i.e. this rule change adversely affects 
me.  Everyone has a right to complain, but some of the comments do appear 
selfish if they don't appreciate why changes have been made. UK-Contest 
posts are often seen as being from the "vocal minority."  I'm fortunate to 
be a member both of radio clubs where contesting is not the primary focus of 
the club, and also of contest groups of varying calibres. I also do try to 
spend some time on the Internet looking at the public forums set up by radio 
clubs up and down the UK.  I'm aware I'll still hold a degree of bias, but I 
am trying to be mindful of the wide range of individuals and groups who 
participate in contesting, which is perhaps more than can sometimes be said 
of some of the more prolific posters to UK-Contest, or some of those 
actually making policy.



On another reflector, an RSGB contest winner from the UK summarised recent 
goings on in UK-Contest as:  "All those blokes taking the whole thing so 
seriously, with one or two yapping away like little Yorkshire Terriers 
winding up the old boys. Its more like a scrap in the school playground with 
a couple of self righteous "chosen one's" with nothing better to do in life. 
You can see it can't you, the XYL thinking "..thank goodness for that, he's 
gone to his shed to type drivel on that contest reflector organ  thingy. At 
least I can watch Emmerdale without being bothered with his moaning." 
Whilst I may not have chosen those exact same words, I can understand where 
this has come from!



All of these people mentioned above have valid points of view and are 
perfectly entitled to make them. Yet UK-Contest is one of the prime methods 
of communication we have to introduce and showcase contesting to the UK 
Amateur Public. In between the frequent rants and name calling, there are 
the occasional calls for help, reports on contest activity, but in the main 
I think it remains a dubious way to educate potential UK contesters about 
the positives of radiosport.   (Oh, and to the fellow who criticised the 
term in this month's RadCom due to the lack of 'sport' involved, I can 
assure him that I was quite physically and mentally drained after CQ WW!  I 
could certainly feel Keith GM4YXI's pain reading his CQWW writeup too!) 
What can we do here?  Should we have separate lists for 'rules discussions', 
and others purely for activity reports, genuine "help me" or "where do I 
start" questions.  The main RSGB website main page promotes its Technical 
Forum as a safe haven where newcomers can go to get help.



The contest activity reports posted seem to be fewer and further between for 
the majority of the year.  As I wrote in a recent CDXC Digest, whilst the 
travelogue and tales of fitting antenna poles on tiny aircraft and boats are 
exciting, even the exploits of a home based contest can be rewarding 
reading. Reading about the choice of contest and the planning that went into 
it, and then how the contest unfolded and the decisions made might inspire 
someone to have a go next time, and there are more people likely to have a 
go from home than take a trip away. Perhaps especially so if good results 
are made with 'simple bits of wire' and don't need a huge budget and several 
acres.  The Baltic Contest or the Stew Perry Topband Challenge may be 
completely new events to many aspiring contesters, so the word needs to be 
spread.



Following no posts about the WPX CW contest earlier in the year here on 
UK-Contest, the CQ WW RTTY also went by without a single mention there, 
although the CDXC reflector did carry a note about some activity.  CQ WW SSB 
reporting was sparse, again with little from groups and "newer licensees," 
but CQ WW CW appears to have been much better, along with some comments from 
contesters more reflective of the average amateur, as well as just the UK 
leaders. There is a semi-official home for DX Contest score reporting in the 
3830 email reflector, but I feel that any personal message to UK contesters 
might be missed by only submitting a score entry there. With the "upper HF 
band" element of the RSGB's own HF contest programme perhaps decreasing, I 
think it would make sense to show more support for the existing framework of 
popular worldwide HF contests. I'd written this before I'd read about the 
intent to include the EU Sprint and BARTG RTTY contests in the RSGB HF 
Championship, which I'd see as a step in the right direction.  I still 
wonder though out of the hundreds (or thousands) of UK amateurs who enter 
RSGB contests throughout the year, how many are actually motivated to enter 
a particular event because of the Championship table.  I think it's rare. 
The winner is normally someone has already has other silverware to take away 
from the convention.  For the others in the table,  I'm not sure how much 
motivation or reward comes from a cumulative placing and I hear very little 
discussion or comment in person or online. Is it worth the effort put in to 
manage and promote? At least with the new events and the better mode balance 
might shake things up a little.



Aside from UK-Contest, we have the main RSGB website. It's Radiosport page 
does have links to the HF and VHF Contests websites, IOTA Contest and ARDF 
websites. Perhaps some of the 5 images shown on this page should not 
entirely be of ARDF.?



The HF Contest website directs newcomers to start with the 80m Club 
Championships. This is the same series where every single time I've operated 
on SSB this year, I have received or listened to some kind of argument or 
DQRM. Some of this will be from others contesters, and some of it won't. 
This year I've even had someone tell me to "F*** off" about two minutes from 
the start of one session whilst I was quietly CQ'ing away to myself.  Nice, 
eh?  Do we need a "Contesting Code of Conduct" similar to the DX ones 
recently created?  (And since I'd written that it's also been suggested on 
the CDXC reflector, and I gather also with the FOC folks, so maybe something 
will happen.) I'm not sure if such codes of conduct will have any real 
impact practically, or if any recent improvements in DXpedition pileup 
behaviour that some have noted are real or due to the placebo effect.



Even on 80m CC CW events this year there have been complaints raised because 
of the congestion, and on Data modes the same problems exist, despite the 
mode split and increased RTTY bandwidth that relatively few use, perhaps due 
to the risk of interaction on SSB above 3600. The 'running pack' are still 
arriving on SSB up to an hour beforehand, with the risk that their 
'investment' could be wiped out by someone else coming too close just 
seconds before or after the contest starts.



There are lots of relatively new callsigns in the results table, any many 
are claiming they had fun. Others claim it was not so much fun. I also know 
of others who don't take part at all because of the QRM, congestion and 
tempers that can result, and their voice is not heard and their numbers are 
unknown.  The series is very competitive, but as it's relatively easy to add 
'bone-fide' members to a contest group that (even before the 80m CC series 
began) would have no regular meetings or meeting place, and collect no 
subscriptions, the competitive aspect of the club element could become 
absurd. It appears that those who can, call CQ and 'run' 200 stations and 
have some fun.  Many of the newcomers who are directed to try the 80m CC by 
the committee website, and even by me in the past from Convention 
presentations, find themselves only ever giving away points as they Search 
and Pounce up and down the band.



Of course not everyone will have high antennas, and perhaps we should not 
set this aspiration for all new contesters.  There is a demand for domestic 
contests as much as DX based ones. But I do wonder if we are best serving 
the many of today's contesters in the UK with the large amount of promotion 
of the club centric events. Should the number of entries submitted, "the 
bums on seats", be the major yardstick by which success is measured?  It 
seems we rely too much on the group of contest organisers from local clubs 
up and down the UK to cajole their members to get on air "for the good of 
their club."   If it wasn't for this, would these people really take part? 
Is their motivation purely so they can help their club (or perhaps keep 
 "Bob" at the club quiet / happy), and some are not actually that motivated 
by the operating experience itself?  Many contests worldwide are seeing 
increases in activity without being club-centric, I think largely due to the 
increased simplicity of participating i.e. Internet sites for rules and 
publicity, and the availability of free, simple computer logging.



>From the 3830 reflector, some DX contesters post breakdowns of their QSO 
totals by country.  For some of the big worldwide events, even casual UK 
participation (i.e. making a single QSO) is lower than a typical weekday 80m 
CC session, and UK entries are far lower.  Whilst we hold our own relative 
to some other European nations in terms of entries, there's no doubt in my 
mind that we should have a bigger presence.



Aside from the Sprint contests, most of the domestic events are short 
duration, single band events. So, for success:  Turn up (early), be loud 
(there are a number of ways to achieve this, but let's not discuss that 
today), run, perhaps do some SO2V.  Do we need something a little more 
challenging for the top tier?  Why do a number of 80m CC expert entrants not 
take part in the Sprint series?



I almost think we need a way to disincentivise some of the "old school" from 
taking part in the 80m CC if it really is our "newcomers" contest.  If the 
top 50 entrants were not to take part, I wonder if the next 100 entrants 
would enjoy the 80m CC's more.  Yes, overall rate and QSOs would be down, 
but would the experience of those at the bottom of the pile be improved? 
Would we see more people returning to the events that have left it, or more 
people try it that have so far been put off. Let's assume that the lower 
tier folks cannot improve their signals radically, or that "finding a 
friendly farmer and build a better station" is impractical for short weekday 
events.  But if I could roll up on a weekday evening and run stations at a 
high rate for an hour or so, I'm quite likely to want to do that, so I'm not 
sure how I could disincentivise myself!  There have been various suggestions 
posted before on here about different start times, QSY after first QSO, 
certain callsigns being ineligible for certain events etc., all of which 
have various practical flaws that have prevented them from being real 
considerations.



>From the perspective of operating, the Low Power contest seems a better 
introduction to CW contesting.  Rates and CW speeds are slower, and the 
whole affair seems more relaxed.  But without the 'club' element bolted to 
the side, the activity levels are a small fraction of typical 80m CC CW 
event.  Club Calls is a more relaxed SSB event, and it seems that large 
numbers are not finding it difficult to radiate something on Top Band.



One solution could be that more of the 80mCC "Top 50" openly invite others 
to activate their stations. This does happen, but I don't think half as much 
as it could do.  Of course, this would put a spanner in the works in terms 
of the "competition" as Bristol, De Montfort and the others slug it out for 
the top spot. But as had been debated at the start of the year, as nicely 
summed up by our WRTC 2010 veteran Andy G4PIQ: "I don't think that you can 
regard the club element of the CCs as a true competition because there is no 
cap on the number of members of a particular team.. I know the intent of 
that rule was to encourage as many people to come on as possible, and there 
is absolutely no doubting the success of that policy."



Earlier in the year I checked that the Contest Committee's remit was as it 
says on it's website - "to be responsible to the Board for all aspects of 
the Society's HF and VHF contests."   I suggest that they are doing this 
very well, and the range and number of events are well managed and promptly 
adjudicated.  The IT system behind the adjudication software, website and 
log management robot is simply first class.



But I also suggest that the Committee's focus is less on "developing 
contesting within the UK" than it could be. This could be taken up more by 
the CC, and/or by others.  More could be done on education, more publicity 
could be made of the non-RSGB contest programme, and perhaps less reliance 
on 'club contests'.  Perhaps too much time of the committee is spent on the 
day to day management of individual contests, without considering the wider 
picture.  RadCom used to carry results of UK participation in non-RSGB 
events, which disappeared several years ago.  But of course even the RSGB 
events results have gone now.  There were lots of groups and individuals 
taking part in CQ WW this year - do we need to see more reporting and 
publicity given to these?   The CW contest appears to have been many people's 
favourites - but collectively how much have we done to introduce newer 
amateurs to CW this year?  Without some degree of friendly persuasion, the 
skill that so many of us enjoy now will be lost to a large percentage of the 
new generation.



The present Sport Radio column has highlighted some contesters who have 
taken part and done well in some of these events, with wires and low power, 
which is good to see. I wonder though how useful the monthly run-down of the 
forthcoming events is in practice, as it's effectively a more verbose repeat 
of the calendar. I used to do exactly the same with my own local club 
newsletter, which in practice inspired very few. The folks that already knew 
about that month's contests had already decided whether or not to operate. 
For the others, there wasn't enough detail given to persuade people to try. 
My successor at my local club has decided to focus on one specific contest 
per month, and the "spoon feeding" approach giving more detail is having far 
more success in persuading people to come out and try a contest for the 
first time.



In a presentation I gave earlier in the year, I suggested that promotion of 
contesting, guidance and support could be improved, both on-line and in 
person. There are problems not only for the Contest Committee to solve 
alone.  I frequently write in my CDXC Contests column (the same column for 
which very few of the UK's contesters ever seem to voluntarily contribute or 
comment - hint!) that the more experienced folks should give something back. 
Whilst I'm sure there are a few people who immediately just thought "I do 
that" and were poised to press "Reply" to counter my argument, my concern is 
that there are not *enough* of us doing this.



We've had some steps in the right direction in the last couple of years with 
the Contest University Stream at the RSGB (previously "HF") Convention, 
organised by Mark M0DXR, and many members of the RSGB CC have participated. 
I missed the Convention this year, but for the earlier CTUs and before then 
I'd presented on "Getting started in Contesting" or similar subjects.  The 
themes of planning and preparation, and giving ideas and inspiration on 
suitable antennas continued this year.  Yet an anomaly remains in that it 
has been policy to only make the presentation materials available to those 
who have attended CTU.  Could this be changed?  I'm aware that a G3 hosted 
the 2009 presentations for a while on his own website, and there were some 
plans to record or stream the 2010 presentations but these were 
unsuccessful.



Also this year I've enjoyed some of the Webinars produced by the Potomac 
Valley Radio Club.  These are live presentations, streaming presenter audio 
and presentation slides over the Internet to several hundred contesters 
worldwide.  Signing up is free and takes seconds. For the live events you 
can ask questions and interact with the presenters. After the event, the 
recorded webinars are available for listening and watching at any time.  Try 
here:  http://www.pvrc.org/webinar/webinars.htm



I've watched a couple post-event, and I watched the recent CQ WW 
presentation live, which added an extra buzz, especially as you can see who 
is in the audience of contesters from around the globe, and the option to 
post questions live to the presenters at the end.  One thing that hit home 
with me was that the first thing the CQ WW presenters opened with, and the 
last thing they summarised with, was that CQ WW is (meant to be) FUN.  I get 
the impression that the furore over cheating, unclaimed assistance, Skimmer, 
the observer programme etc. may be thought to be overshadowing the positives 
of the contests, and it was time to put things into perspective. Perhaps 
this message could also apply to the UK contesting scene.



Maybe similar Webinars are a better way to promote and educate contesting 
specifically for a UK audience. They could be held periodically, so in 
effect replicating the CTU experience at any time throughout the year, and 
without missing anyone out for whom travel to Milton Keynes is impossible. 
I suggest that a well crafted Webinar would be a far better path to follow 
for a newly interested person than signing up for this reflector!



A quick pause for my personal "Contester of the Year."   I nominate Tonno 
ES5TV, for his good attitude and sportsmanship.  For this year's CQ WW DX 
SSB contest, he travelled to Ranko 4O3A's super-station in Montenegro. Tonno 
operated for the full 48 hours (with 3 radios!) but lost quite substantially 
to superman Jeff N5TJ at CR2X.  But whilst surely still very tired, and 
perhaps annoyed as he had missed one of his airport connections on the way 
home and was stuck in central Europe overnight (also missing his wife's 
birthday) he was full of praise for the victor, his host, the activity from 
his other competitors and also by another inspiring 3830 report posting.  He 
wants to win, but the game itself is more important.



Recently, more aggravated emails were being flung towards the Contest 
Committee via UK-Contest.  I don't understand why a specific question such 
as "Is next year's calendar ready?" isn't directed as a personal email 
towards the Committee itself.  What should have been a straightforward 
question takes on a different tone when others chime in, with a hint of a 
threat that they will withdraw their support and activity because the dates 
have not yet been announced.  Oh, and when the rules and calendar are 
announced, there's a new flurry of complaints that certain folks are 
disadvantaged with rule changes.  You can never please all of the people all 
of the time.  If the rules have been one way for a while and benefitted 
certain people, what's the harm in trying something different, or something 
that was tried in the past, to see what happens.  If a different group of 
people find this advantageous, just for a change, is that such a bad thing?



Over the years on VHF, pre-dating the UKACs, there have been many contests 
and rule changes to experiment with UK only multipliers and DX multipliers, 
or points differentials.  Some will benefit more than others from this. It's 
entirely subjective how a 'UK' contest should be run, allowing 'UK' stations 
to compete by getting multipliers from the continent, or to maximise 
'intra-UK' QSOs by minimising the impact of the QSOs and square available 
outside of the UK.  The compromise made seems to be reasonable, trying to 
consider the wider picture.



Similarly, there were a number of questions raised about the Club Calls 
contest this year, which just like the question about "how do I log this 
contest using SD?" are raised somewhere on an annual basis.  On the one 
hand, this contest is "for fun" with a large number of entrants not being 
regular contesters and taking part as a club activity event. On the other 
hand, there are individuals and groups who are "out to win."  The problem is 
that some entrants do not use accurately use their club's name, and it can 
vary between members of the same club, and also by the same entrant over the 
course of the evening. So the necessity of recording the exchange accurately 
is reduced, as it's less likely than normal that errors are the fault of the 
receiving station. However, the long winded exchange itself is kept to 
retain the flavour of the evening for the less competitively inclined 
entrants.  It's not perfect, and the purists have argued technically that 
several aspects are "wrong", and I agree with their arguments, but what we 
have seems like the best compromise available.  If you don't like it, don't 
enter.  Several hundred people got on air, so it can't be all bad.  We don't 
have similar protests about CQ WW zone checking.



I didn't particularly enjoy the rants about rules whilst I was on the 
committee and often it didn't bring any positive results.  Yet it's 
understandable to raise queries in a public forum to ascertain if others 
feel the same way, and it can be productive if the alternative viewpoints 
are pitched as just that :- 'alternative considerations for the future' and 
do not end up in a "you're wrong, I'm right, and for the 3rd time I will 
re-state the arguments why" dialogue.  As I've not contributed directly at 
the time, here are a couple of comments about recent rules discussions:



21/28 MHz Contest: Firstly it's finishing, and then it's not. Obviously it's 
a good thing to be flexible and allow reversal of a previous decision if a 
trend changes or new details come to light.  But many of the arguments for 
stopping the event still hold true. The majority of the 'world' entrants 
would still have a very low average rate even if UK support greatly 
increases.  Whilst the leaders of UK and DX sections may have a lot of QSOs, 
the average number is a lot lower.  The leading UK station will hear and 
work so much more than a typical UK station, with the same for the DX ones. 
Casual operators will give a few points away to bump up the scores for those 
at the tops of the tables, but the mainstay of the group on both sides doesn't 
do so well and the average QSO rate considering all of the entrants may not 
be viable to maintain the event.



There have been many ways suggested here and elsewhere to dress the contest 
up differently..  My own thoughts are to expand it to raise QSO volumes, but 
keep it as a 'regional' contest on the higher bands. So maybe add the EI's 
to the mix, or have it as a Zone 14 contest.  There have been several calls 
for it to become an 'everyone works everyone with extra points/focus for the 
UK' contest, and maybe on more bands as well.  Do we really need another 
contest of this type?   Just because other countries have them, and perhaps 
can muster a more active group of domestic contesters from their country, do 
we need one as well?   The comments that "we mustn't lose the weekend and we 
must have a contest running" don't seem to be a good argument.  There are 
already many other events running, and in the main think that market forces 
should prevail.  Several people have said that we need to improve the 
advertising.  Yet the same event has been on the international calendars and 
Contest Committee websites, and it is mentioned in RadCom.  The latest step 
of a leaflet given out at major amateur radio shows may not give that great 
a return.



Making 21/28 an "everyone works everyone" contest could upset other regional 
contests concurrently running on the same weekend e.g. Oceania DX, or the 
California QSO Party.  If people really want an "everyone works everyone" 
contest, why do I only see a handful of UK entrants in similar events hosted 
by other sponsors that occur throughout the year?  The 'UK special focus' 
that our own version would bring won't change very much.  Hence I don't see 
that we need another similar contest.  We could argue that the RSGB already 
organises the IOTA contest which meets these requirements, in that everyone 
can work everyone and UK stations are more valuable than most of the rest of 
the world.



AFS Super League: What's the latest idea to inspire us to take part in some 
RSGB contests?  Answer: SLP = (N+1-P)*1000/N   Yes, it's the AFS Super 
League.  Here we take some existing events which have remained effectively 
unchanged for many years, but by combining the results for a new table the 
feedback from the RSGB Convention is that this is "exciting."   Why wouldn't 
any groups or individuals enter any, or more, of the AFS series to begin 
with if it wasn't for a combined table?  Is the lure of being ranked in a 
new club table with the possibility of a certificate so great that it can 
motivate you to enter some existing contests that previously were so 
uninteresting that you didn't participate?   Is it possible that a large 
proportion of the people entering won't understand the subtlety of the 
equation?  (Interestingly I'm being proved wrong as one of my local club 
members became excited over prospect of the SuperLeague the recent email 
sent to previous AFS entrants - so perhaps "marketing" is the solution for 
everything?)  The 80m AFS is perhaps close to congestion, but perhaps more 
previously VHF-only types can be QSO fodder for the big guns - surely 
several previously completely uninterested new entrants won't make a leap 
straight to the top 20?  The VHF/UHF activity could do with a boost though - 
the 'club magic' that has enhanced the UKAC series hasn't really rubbed off 
on the 2m and 70cm AFS contests yet. So let's see what happens here, but as 
a fairly regular entrant in some guise to all 4 AFS events, I remain to be 
convinced that it's a substantial step forward for UK contesting. Let's wait 
for the results.



I think it's time I draw to a close. I think it would be great if 
individuals or groups could pick out messages from this ramble and do 
something positive with them.  Do I think I'll get that?  No.  I would 
expect a couple of personal replies saying that they agree with some aspects 
of what I've said.  I expect some personal, and some public replies 
disagreeing with what I've said.  I might expect some flippant replies as 
well.  If I call CQ at any point next year and strange voices or carriers 
appear mysteriously, I will wonder if it is because I'd dared to raise some 
(constructive?) criticism.



In my opinion, to help contesting grow in 2011 and beyond will take steps 
from both the contesting community at large and the contest committee. I don't 
know if sufficient people would agree that there are problems to rectify, 
and if so, what appetite there is for putting any significant steps into 
practice.



Finally, if anyone would like to reply to this message, PLEASE don't copy 
the whole body of the text into the reply.



73,



Lee G0MTN