[VHFcontesting] QST and contests

[Kenneth E. Harker]

    I'm surprised that I haven't seen any discussion of this here.
In case any VHF contesters are still unaware, a proposal has been
made and will be discussed at the next ARRL Board of Directors meeting,
to radically change and reduce the content of QST.  Specifically, 
Section News may be eliminated and contest score reporting may be 
eliminated.  The proposal suggests that contest line scores be 
published only on the ARRLWeb, and that the only things you'll see 
in QST are "top ten" boxes and the like.  In VHF contesting, this 
means New England stations will receive almost all of the press.  
Small contests like the UHF contest, 10 GHz, and the EME contest might 
be in jeapordy entirely.

    ARRL HQ is apparently treating this as a done deal - the QST editorial
staff has apparently been preparing for it for some time.  The HF contest 
community certainly only discovered it by accident.  The Contest Advisory 
Committee was never asked to comment on this proposal, nor was the Membership
Services Committee involved.

    There have been _many_ posts regarding this on the CQ-Contest reflector 
(http://lists.contesting.com/_cq-contest/200201/).

    If you think eliminating contest results in QST and putting line scores 
only on the ARRLWeb just so the League can publish more articles about 
"Messy Shack Contests" and "How to Build Your Own PC" is the wrong direction
for the ARRL and QST to be headed, you need to write your ARRL Division
Director: (http://www.arrl.org/divisions/).  You don't even need to use
a stamp - they all have email addresses.  And you need to do it this week,
before the BoD (I think it's this Friday.)

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Kenneth E. Harker      "Vox Clamantis in Deserto"      kharker at cs.utexas.edu
University of Texas at Austin                   Amateur Radio Callsign: WM5R
Department of the Computer Sciences      VP, Central Texas DX & Contest Club
Taylor Hall TAY 2.124                         Maintainer of Linux on Laptops
Austin, TX 78712-1188 USA            http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/kharker/
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