[UK-CONTEST] UK-Contest Digest, Vol 116, Issue 39

[Steve White]

Clive says that about 200 stations are active on CW in 80m Club 
Championships. From February to May 2012 that's absolutely correct, but in 
June (the same month as CW NFD) is was 170. Now consider how many of those 
are serious CW operators, capable of hacking it in a major contest. Maybe 
about half of them? Let's say 100.

Now look at the results table of CW NFD 2012 and add up all the operators in 
all the teams. Including checklogs it comes to 153.

Examining the callsigns of those listed as operators in CW NFD 2012 reveals 
only 3 Foundation licensees and no Intermediate licensees. I'm not saying 
that I agree with Foundation/Intermediate/newbies steering well clear of 
events such as CW NFD (presumably for fear of looking totally stupid in the 
presence of the CW Gods - and being shouted at when they make the slightest 
mistake), but I think 153 ops in CW NFD is none too shabby - especially when 
there must also have been some non-operating newbies/novices/non-RSGB 
members on some of the sites, erecting antennas, brewing-up, learning the 
ropes etc.

I wonder how many of the groups had additional non-operating help, or is a 
'closed shop' in operation at some stations? If so it wouldn't be the first 
time I'd heard of it.

73

Steve, G3ZVW

==============

Message: 4
Date: Thu, 30 Aug 2012 14:10:08 -0000
From: "Clive GM3POI" <gm3poi2 at btinternet.com>
To: "'David'" <g3yyd at btinternet.com>, "'UK-Contest at contesting. com'"
<UK-Contest at contesting.com>
Subject: Re: [UK-CONTEST] WAS HF NFD RESULTS PUBLISHED
Message-ID: <000101cd86b9$29c34ff0$7d49efd0$@btinternet.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

David
Comparisons with ARRL field are not legitimate. The ARRL is and has
always been not a contest in the normal sense. Which of course is the reason
it has many bands, and is treated like a BBQ rather than an HF Contest. Not
so
the case in Europe. You only had to listen this last NFD to see that EU
activity was very high, admittedly not so from the UK for a number of
already stated reasons. NFD only needs more active contesters to join in,
NOT to be changed from the now EU standard.
The types of questions that need to be asked are, if 200-300
stations can be QRV in AFS or the CC contests why can't they get their act
together for NFD.  Is it the same old case of the Brits just can't be
bothered, which of course is more than likely.
Is it the case that the standard format for  RSGB contests produces
home grown contest entrants that can't hack it when  they join the big boys
for real contests. ? Again more than likely.
My last remark is centred on the fact than no callsign errors in RSGB
contests have any penalty for the error, therefore when a UK contester
entrant joins the real world, they are not up to it, in the main.
Where are the RSGB CC online Videos of how to operate and be
competitive. etc. These are the types of questions that should be
asked and answered before messing around further with rules that have served
well within EU for years.
73 Clive GM3POI