[VHFcontesting] Rules Comment

[frank bechdoldt]

To the VUAC and selected others,

I wish to voice my comments regarding the negative impact of removing the Assisted class on entries in the 2009 ARRL EME contest. I have previously posted my comments in support of the Assisted class to several public forums and directly to Sean Kutzko and some VUAC members, so I will not repeat them here. I am focusing on the impacts to the 2m entries only as that is the most popular class for assisted and the most impacted by the rule change.

As of the Jan 18, 2010 claimed scores for the EME contest, there were only 119 entries this year, five of which are checklogs. Of those 119 logs, only twenty eight people turned in logs for the 2m single band category. Compare this to sixty five 2m only entries (digital, analog and mixed combined) in 2008.

Year Analog Digital Mixed Assisted Total
2008 6 22 3 34 65
2009 12 N/A 16 N/A 28

That is a more than 50% reduction in total entries compared to last year. CW entries are double this year though, but they are still close to half of the digital only entries from 2008. I do not think this rule change did anything to increase participation.

At random times during the contest period I logged into the N0UK EME chat page (which is the primary 2m liaison point), effectively disqualifying myself this year. Now for the kicker, during my random times on N0UK, I noted every user connected to N0UK and the total was 275. Again, this is a random sampling and the actual number could likely be higher. In any event, the number of people utilizing assistance during the contest period was almost TEN TIMES the number of 2m only contest entrants . This shows popularity of assisted. These guys were having a great time making contacts on 2m EME in spite of the ARRL EME contest rules. The number of N0UK logged-in users was twenty three times the total analog only entries this year. That is a huge pool of potential contest entrants which were excluded by the rules change for 2009.

As a side note there were only seven US entries in the 2m only class. Pretty disappointing for an ARRL sponsored contest in my opinion.

I urge you all to restore the 2008 rules for the 2010 ARRL EME contest. BTW, I prefer to operate mostly unassisted, but I am 100% in support of the assisted class.

vy 73, de Robert, KR7O
QRV 6M and 2M EME



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