[VHFcontesting] Let's make the contests do what they were supposed to do

[Tom Holmes]

John...

That would certainly be one of the steps in the two-year process, and one
the reasons I felt it would take two years.

As for the ARRL sponsorship of the sprints, I like that too but the
important aspect is getting the word out, as you said. There are numerous
possibilities for getting the League on board. For example, they do not
'sponsor' the Frequency Measurement Tests, but they appear to sanction them
and give them publicity in QST, so I see no reason why something similar
should not be possible with the sprints.

My objective with the clean sheet suggestion is to try to create an
environment for VHF and above contests that addresses the concerns we've all
read about here and on the microwave reflector, and create the classes,
rules, and scoring scheme that offers a fair opportunity and incentive for
stations with different capabilities and geographic locations to participate
and compete with recognition for their efforts. I'm not from the camp that
thinks every kid on every team should get a trophy to build their
self-esteem but I do think that there needs to be recognition that we each
were dealt a different hand.


Tom Holmes, N8ZM

-----Original Message-----
From: VHFcontesting [mailto:vhfcontesting-bounces at contesting.com] On Behalf
Of John Hawkinson
Sent: Sunday, January 04, 2015 11:31 AM
To: vhfcontesting at contesting.com
Subject: Re: [VHFcontesting] Let's make the contests do what they were
supposed to do

Tommy phone <tholmes at woh.rr.com> wrote on Sat,  3 Jan 2015
at 22:35:21 -0500 in <6C384267-B756-409F-BB60-D07371F451AB at woh.rr.com>:

> So how about taking a clean sheet of paper approach to this? Design
> a new set of rules and contest structure to better achieve the goals
> of increasing activity and providing a reasonably level playing
> field.

> Set a target of having it ready to go two years from now and with
> commonality across the ARRL, CQ, and sprints.

I think a much more practical approach is to have one contest adopt a 
new structure and beta test it. Much easier to get buy-in if something
works, much easier to experiment one at a time.

It seems to me that a lot of people don't know about the Sprints, and that
more would operate in them if they did. That's a marketing problem.

What can we do to increase awareness?

Can the ARRL feature them? Obviously they're not an ARRL contest, but
why should that be a bar? Maybe the ARRL can be offered a co-sponsorship
in exchange for some marketing?


p.s.: A mitigating workaround to too many categories may be to
authorize/encourage the ARRL Contest Branch staff to merge categories
in the results at their discretion.

--jhawk at mit.edu
  John Hawkinson
  KB1CGZ
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