Some suggestions and ideas as a result of my question about how to improve
contest activity. Some were received privately.
> Articles describing the favorable experiences of new contesters might
help. The place for these would be in QST or on eHam, not NCJ, and they
should probably be run about twice per year. The articles should also
highlight that you don't have to be a serious entrant to have fun, since I'd
bet that many folks have the impression that there's little point in
competing unless you go all out.
> Use of contest logs for award credit
> Teams comprised of some predefined number of hams (three? five?) would be
allowed to pool their results on an hour-by-hour basis, with the best score
for any clock hour being used toward the team score ... kind of like a
scramble in golf.
> The great majority of potential contesters are not new hams, they are new
contesters. It might be more effective to let hams claim Rookie status who
had not entered the contest within the last three years.
> More categories that allow people the chance to compete against others
with same station (or avoid competing with others with bigger stations).
> Time limited categories that would allow those who don't have the full
weekend to still have a competitive experience. Suggested times were 3
hours, 6 hours, 8 hours, 12 hours, and 24 hours. Or follow German
Markrothen RTTY Contest. In that one the entire contest runs 8 hours on, 8
off, 8 on, 8 off, and 8 on. So it is a 24 hour contest spread out over 40
hours with all the 24 hours of the solar day being part of the contest.
One group was in favor of a time-based category. Another group liked a
"best x hours" of the full effort.
> Too much focus on winners. Make "performance results" that recognize
different achievements within the contest. E.g., Who worked 5BWAC in the
shortest time, Who worked most long Distance DX in the shortest time, etc.
Categories would revolve around Continents, Zones, Countries, Prefixes,
QSOs, All bands, Lowbands, Highbands, threebands, single bands
QSO distance, Time.
> Define a separate category "Best of x hours." I know a few contests
already embrace this philosophy in one form or another. BARTG RTTY is one I
believe. You can operate the entire event if you want or a 6-hour window and
submit the abbreviated event as your entry for the contest.
> Allow the contesters to select their "best rate" from their entire contest
effort. There might be different "time categories", i.e., 0-3 hours, 3-6
hours, etc. A contester can then compete against others who have limited
time resources and gain recognition of their efforts.
> Give top 3 plaques on all mayor categories and ask for donations with
log's paypal suggested with a limit of $5 US.
> Have decent write ups... Move the detailed results entirely to the web and
have something limited for written media.
> European VHF-contesting uses the .edi-log-format which has lines for
power, antenna height, height asl and antennas. So the results can easily
contain those informations.
http://www.darc.de/referate/ukw-funksport/ukw/mai-2009a.txt
Randy, K5ZD
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