[VHFcontesting] Fwd: VHF Contests Rules Discussion and Proposal

[w7xu at w7xu.com]

Just a few thoughts from the middle of the country --

The more populated areas of the country already have a huge advantage 
when it comes to making QSOs compared to those of us who have fewer than 
a dozen stations within 200 miles. While I support the idea of getting 
folks back on cw and phone, making analog QSOs count twice (or 4 times!) 
as much as a digital QSO really puts those of us in the hinterlands at a 
disadvantage.

Likewise, getting points for separate QSOs using CW, SSB and digital 
also gives a big advantage to the population centers. Combining CW with 
SSB vs digital, as K8MR suggested (but for a different reason), would 
lessen that discrepancy somewhat as well as take care of the mixed mode 
QSO question. Maybe with just 2 categories and a distance factor, it 
would be more palatable for those of us away from the east coast or 
other populated areas. (Or maybe too much of a change for others).

I don't like the idea of a station only being able to make a CW QSO in a 
CW sub-band. There are a lot of places in the country where it was tough 
to find anyone straying from 144.200 even in "the good old days." I 
think it would take a lot of arm twisting to get stations to move to 
144.050 in my area.

The bottom line is that I'm in favor of recovering the lost cw and phone 
activity, but let's not overlook the unintended consequences.

73, Arliss  W7XU
     Currently marooned near Tierra del Fuego (and you thought you were
     in the sticks), but normally in EN13