[UK-CONTEST] UK-Contest Digest, Vol 116, Issue 42

[Steve White]

If amateur radio (or contesting) is dying....
1. How is it that the IOTA Contest is getting more and more entries each 
year?
2. How is it that "at the beginning of November the total number of logs 
received for 2011 RSGB contests (HF and VHF) overtook the number received 
for the whole of 2010"? - see RadCom January 2012.
3. How is it that participation in the world's 14 major contests increased 
by 60% in the first decade of the new Century? - see RadCom October 2009.

And finally... where did the notion come from that in SSB FD you have to 
spend "24 hours in the rain mucking about with short aerials and bits of 
wire"? The rules state that in the Open section, "There is no restriction on 
the number, height or type of antennas."

73

Steve, G3ZVW


Message: 10
Date: Thu, 30 Aug 2012 23:22:07 +0100
From: UKCONTEST <ukcontest at btconnect.com>
To: <uk-contest at contesting.com>
Subject: Re: [UK-CONTEST] SSB NFD
Message-ID: <503FE78F.20107 at btconnect.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="ISO-8859-1"; format=flowed

Hello all

I think its great the way DARC get Region 1 mapped out, as TXF's link
shows. Why can't the RSGB do something like this ? Well done to DARC for
putting this on.

Talking of SSB FD....
As far as I am concerned, the sooner the RSGB HF CC align the UK SSB FD
(and the other FD contests for that matter) rules & sections with the
rest of Europe the better. The hobby is not getting any younger to be
polite, and to be more accurate, its dieing. Creating a "European Field
Day" where the entrants can compete within sections, at a National and
European level would create a far more interesting event than 24 hours
in the rain mucking about with short aerials and bits of wire. Something
that the RSGB HF CC, and in my opinion, the misguided, seem to want to
promote.

There's plenty of other weekends for that sort of thing !

Faffing about with rule changes and creating a number of web pages that
as one subscriber described needing a PhD to do anything with is just a
waste of time and, to me, off putting.

Keep it simple, make it a challenge (not with bits of wire & tape
measures) make it interesting, and use technology to promote it.

Anyway, I'm off to pack my stuff, and get going to my new SSB FD site,
and let DARC know, so they can update the contest web site, PDQ, there
we are, technology in action !

73

Adrian M?1LCR/P