[VHFcontesting] ARRL VHF Contest rules review study de AA7A

[James Hayes]

Hello Ned and all in the group...

I have eagerly read and absorbed this thread with great enthusiasm. As a
very new VHF/UHF contester (marking my first year in July), I have seen a
few points that might make it easier to digest as far as revamping the
rules.
As Terry stated when he started this one the rules must keep up with
technology. Being new I have amassed a relatively moderate single-op station
running 100watts on 6M, 2M, and 432. It wasn't easy on my budget, but it was
necessary in order to compete, and if I had wanted to expand, pick up the
tele. and dial a new transverter from 222 to beyond 10ghz! (Which is where
all the major points are taken). This was done from my home QTH, ASL 212'
and 360* LOS for at least 100 miles. My limitation was the average height of
my single antennas for each band. Now, 100 watts into a 12 ele. yagi at 25'
may not sound like much of a handicap, until one figures that the majority
of Q's and grids are over 200 miles away!
How about a revamp that figures operators by class: novice = new contesters
under 5 years of activity extra 100 points to raw score, techie =contesters
with 5-10 yrs experience extra 75 points to raw score and so on? One will
notice that the points go down instead of up... this is due to the fact that
most contesters expand their station and personal contest capabilities and
with the subsequent improvements give the contester a natural advantage to
increase their scores via more power, bigger antenna arrays and personal
rovers. (Another peeve I have).
How about subdivision also by power levels: a1 = 0-50 watt class, a2 =
50-100 watt class etc, with bonus points offered for QRP level and filter
them down as power level goes up? It would have to be fair and attractive to
novice as well as veteran contesters of course.
Another idea I had thought of was distance points...something like adding
bonus points for small stations running low power, small antennas (single
antennas as opposed to arrays) and for every 100 miles from their QTH add
bonus points?
I may even have a few other ideas that would work amicably, but this is just
my opinion for now and Ned's suggestion merits a bit of deep thought to
organize these ideas for proposal.
I being a single-op multi-band home QTH station see a lot of unbalance in
the way stations like K8GP (sorry Terry) getting away with self-serving
rovers to boost their scores. I can see a time when that was a good thing,
but guys like me can't even break 10,000 QSO points with our stations and
locations, and to try and compete with 1.8 mil (I think was the Pirates'
last raw score) is beyond comprehension for most of us. Therefore; a revamp
to even the playing field would be a great idea and one who's time has
finally come.

Jim, N2YEV
FN34gs, Plattsburgh, NY
SixClub #1663, SMIRK # 6480

-----Original Message-----
From: vhfcontesting-admin at contesting.com
[mailto:vhfcontesting-admin at contesting.com]On Behalf Of Ned Stearns
Sent: Monday, September 02, 2002 1:49 PM
To: VHFcontesting
Subject: [VHFcontesting] ARRL VHF Contest rules review study de AA7A

Gang,

I usually remain silent on contesting discussions on open forums on the
Internet but this current topic is close to my heart. I am currently and
have been for the past two years the chairman of the ARRL Contest Advisory
Committee (CAC). This committee is the principle group of subject matter
experts that provides advice to the ARRL Membership Services Committee (MSC)
on matters related to ARRL-sponsored contests. Over the last year or so, the
CAC was tasked by the MSC to study the revamping of the Club Competition
rules for ARRL contests. As a result of that study, over a dozen changes
were made to the ARRL general contest rules that enhance club (and personal)
competition and relaxes outdated and unnecessary constraints to club
participation. The MSC responded to just about every recommendation put
forward by the committee. This process seems to be working well. The CAC is
currently awaiting tasking from the MSC on the very issue of reviewing and
potentially revising all ARRL VHF/UHF contest rules. The desire is to
address the falling levels of participation in the ARRL contests. This
discussion topic is a growing issue among league members and deserves some
creative effort is needed from the MSC with help from the CAC.

I was recently asked by the new chairman of the MSC (W6XD) how to get the
CAC (a predominantly HF group) to provide the appropriate on VHF contest
issues. As most of you know, operating tactics, propagation factors  and
station designs are vastly different on VHF contests and it takes a savvy
VHF operator to understand what makes things fun in a VHF contest. I
personally lived through the agony of the Rover Scoring rule change in VHF
contests as a member of the CAC a few years back. My personal feelings are
that neither the MSC or the CAC at that time had the appropriate sense of
the value of motivating the rover to rove in a VHF contest and some of the
fun was lost and some of the spirit to participate in VHF contests was
dissipated as a result of that rule change. The League does appreciate the
value of contesting to its members and to the hobby in general and would
gladly respond to reasonable revisions to contest rules if it would enhance
the participation in the events. So, it's time to get going on it.

Let me tell you how to make this happen.

1. Email your Division Director (email address is listed on the ARRL web
site and inside QST) and tell them that this issue is important to you and
needs to be addressed by the MSC as soon as possible. (The 15 Division
Directors run the run League...everyone in Newington does what these folks
tell them to do)

2. Contact your CAC representative and tell him/her that you would be glad
to provide inputs and or advice on VHF contesting issues (email address for
your division listed on ARRL website in Contest area).

3. Respond, if asked, to participate on an ad hoc group that will
undoubtedly be assembled to support the study of VHF contest rule revisions
in the near future.

My tenure as CAC chairman is about to lapse. This assignment is only for two
years and I am ready to do something (anything) else. However, I am about
the only experienced VHF contested on the committee and I may be asked to
hang around on the committee and participate on this project. My hope is
that the MSC moves out soon with the project.

Thanks for reading this.

Ned Stearns
AA7A
SW Division CAC
Chairman CAC

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