[UK-CONTEST] RSGB 21/28MHz contest

[Roger Thawley]

Chris,

An interesting proposal.

>From the perspective of someone who has more a penchant for VHF than HF. I
see the 10/15 contest as a little different to other HF contests and the
risk I see, with what you propose, is that it becomes 'just another HF
contest', however, we also have to recognise that 10M, and to a lesser
degree 15M, pose a bit of a challenge during periods of sunspot minima.
One of the thoughts I've had, on and off, is to replace 10M with 20M during
low parts of the cycle and swap back to 10M during peaks.
Maybe add 6M as well to encourage some of the VHF folks to come and play -
of course October suits 6M less but inter UK contacts are entirely possible
and adding 6 may encourage more portable stations out to play.

5W limit seems fair given all those FT817s out there.

I'm undecided about the value of including a system of multipliers as this
always seems to become a source of discontent one way or the other

Contests which run all night have no interest for me - some of us need our
beauty sleep! I suspect many are the same. If the contest was to operate
over two days, I'd favour two set periods of, say, 6 hours, one period each
day. 1000 - 1600, say.

Electronic logging seems entirely sensible as long as there is an on-line
web entry tool for those luddites who wish to write everything down as they
go :-)

5 days is too short as a deadline for log entry, the following weekend
should be included as a minimum, so at least 7 days.

I don't see any value in penalties. Contesting isn't about how well you type
or how neat your writing is. Both parties loose the contact if either makes
an entry mistake - simples.

Contest exchange with serial number and locator - maidenhead locators are a
standard format which work everywhere, globally. A non-participant who
stumbles across the contest will very likely recognise the reporting format
immediately, regardless of where they are from. Personally, I'd include a
signal report but given many HF operators approach of giving everyone a '59'
report, the value is diminished. Perhaps make the report optional so, under
circumstances where it is useful, it can be included. (Extra points for
using a signal report under such circumstances!)

Perhaps break the contest into single band sections to accommodate single
band entries?

Some sort of accommodation for restricted antennas, perhaps working in
tandem with the three proposed power limits i.e:
5W with single element antenna (dipole, vertical, etc)
100W with max of 3 elements - suits all those folks with 3 element
tri-banders.
400W with no antenna restrictions.

My £11.23 worth.

Roger, G0BSU