[VHFcontesting] [VHF] Comments sought for new ARRL UHF Contest in May

[Darryl Holman]

Wait...the proposed new date for a UHF contest is " [t]he weekend that 
includes the first Sunday of May"?!?

That is also the weekend of the New England QSO Party (starts 4pm EDT), 
the 7th call area QSO party (6am PDT), the Delaware QP (1pm EDT) and the 
Indiana QP (11am CDT).    That totals 16 states! This means hams in 16 
states will have to decide which contest to primarily play in.

I have only participated in the ARRL UHF contests as a Limited Rover and 
have only participated in the 7QPs as a mobile station.   I love both 
contests, but, frankly, I would probably chose to be /M in the 7QP over 
/R in the UHF contest.  It is a big deal in 7-land.  I make 3 times the 
QSOs in the one 18-hour day.   I believe the 7QP is only behind 
California in participation for state/regional QSO parties.  And since 
INQP, NEQP and 7QP have "reciprocal" QSO scoring, these three contests 
almost make a national QP.    N1MM has a special mode for people to play 
in all three simultaneously.

The ARRL is proposing to increase participation in a contest where 174 
logs were submitted last year (and has never produced more than 250 
logs) by competing against the 7QP (579 logs in 2015, 6,524 
participants), the NEQP (414 logs in 2015), the INQP (260+ logs in 
2015), and eight or nine other  contests as well.    That just doesn't 
make any sense.

It seems the only justification for moving the contest date is to make 
it more attractive for rovers.  But more than a few rovers also do HF 
mobile contests.    So, I expect moving the UHF contest to this date 
could actually hurt rover participation.   The same might be true for 
people who enjoy undertaking portable operations.

Also, there happens to be a Microwave sprint scheduled this year on that 
weekend.    The ARRL would sort of be usurping the date of the microwave 
sprint....   Seems rather rude.

When you submit your comments to the ARRL, please consider mentioning 
the conflicts with other contests for the proposed weekend.

Best,
   Darryl
   ww7d