[UK-CONTEST] 432MHz AFS Sunday 7th February

[Rob Harrison]

Hi Ray & all,

I would wager the UK spotters are non-contesters. As for the decline in UK 
spotters since the 'KST ban, I can't say, as the ban virtually coincided 
with me getting internet access in the shack! I was blind to the cluster 
before then, so it hasn't made much difference. I've said before setting up 
skeds in a contest for me breaks the flow of things. If it were allowed I 
still don't think I'd use it. I'll use it outside of contests though, at a 
more leisurely pace.

You have to take account of the larger number of Eu stations active, there 
must be a least 25 countries in Europe active on a NAC evening, so 
relatively speaking, the percentage of spotters per active stations is 
small. A lot of the spots are of the  "please beam to me" nature, or, one or 
two stations spotting what they're working.

What we've got to decide is do we want a contest, or an activity night. Why 
don't we have both?

The activity night on a different day, and not restricted by contest rules. 
At the start everyone announces their presence on the band via the cluster 
( but no QRG) then we all go off and find everyone. Otherwise it's a 
glorified sked fest, and everyone would be trying to work as much DX as 
possible to the detriment of the smaller guys. It's got to be inclusive, 
rather than exclusive.I'm more in favour of a year long activity event, 
rather than "it's Tuesday contest night" and the other weekdays are white 
noise.

It'll be interesting to see what comes out of the IARU meeting re 'KST, 
either way, and how the Amateur population reacts.

73

Bob  G8HGN  JO01fo


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Ray James" <gm4cxm at yahoo.co.uk>
To: "UK Contesting" <uk-contest at contesting.com>
Sent: Thursday, February 11, 2010 11:01 PM
Subject: Re: [UK-CONTEST] 432MHz AFS Sunday 7th February



--- On Thu, 11/2/10, Rob Harrison <robharrison at g8hgn.freeserve.co.uk> wrote:


> As for dog eat dog, well it's a contest, NOT an activity night. If it were 
> an activity night everyone, including me, would be spotting away merrily, 
> but it's not and they don't.


If that were true Bob then how come since the UK's unilateral 
'KST/DX-Cluster ban has spotting by UK stations evaporated during contests 
bar a few isolated exceptions yet in the rest of EU were no such ban is 
currently in place, the unselfish contest camaraderie by folk with a similar 
interests continues.

If you have any doubt then feel free to carry out the same research I did.

Visit the DX-Cluster site and click on "Search".
In the "Search String" box enter "contest".
Year, Hmmm....2009/2008 if you want to see EU activity versus UK decline and 
any year prior to the CC ban to see how it used to be.
Mode "ALL"
"Any" column.
Band, 2m, 70cm, 23cm?
Number of Spots, 1,000

73 Ray GM4CXM




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