Although some of the posts may have deteriorated to
this issue (and money is ALWAYS an issue), the main
goal, at least as *I* read in K1RO's post
http://lists.contesting.com/_cq-contest/200201/msg00145.html
is NOT that they are simply trying to save money. In
fact, Mark never states that they are trying to save
money, per se (although he admits that decreased ad
revenue is a "complicating factor").
What the ARRL *does* claim is that it is trying to
BALANCE the coverage. Having 4% or 5% of the ham
population get 10% or 20% of the pages (or whatever
the numbers) is wrong in their minds - or at least in
the minds of the membership. The fact this rather
small percentage of hams is one piece that moves and
shakes much of the general population seems to be lost.
(I'll admit that the need for "balance" becomes more of
an issue in an austere environment - but it's my guess
that contesting writeups and line scores have been a
topic of conversation for a very long time.)
One good thing about the web and contesting is that it
seems that the ARRL may actually be allowing some
volunteer work to enter this world. Any programming
done to receive, process and present scores, logs,
etc., is pretty much a one-time investment - with some
obvious maintenance and improvements. (If it's not,
it's bad programming, hi). With the right
programming, Dan's workload might actually be reduced! Just think of all the
time he'd have if he
didn't have to hand out UBN reports piece-meal?
Just to be clear, I would miss the line scores and I
am against their removal (or relocation). I think
that contesting is so important to a vibrant ham radio
that QST coverage should be expanded. Nowhere can you
find more passionate and technically competent
individuals than at a gathering of contesters. The
unfortunate reality is that the ARRL is convinced (for
whatever reasons) that current membership does not
want line scores. I wonder if the membership was
"surveyed" to see if it would be "OK" to publish
"replacement" pro-contest articles?
73, Mike N2MG
Contester, soon-to-be-displaced ARRL LM
On Tue, 15 January 2002, Glenn Rattmann wrote:
> At 07:04 AM 01/14/2002 -0800, Mike wrote:
>
> > If ARRL is serious about replacing the line score
> > pages with an even somewhat equivalent number of
> > contesting article pages, I think it might be a
> > net gain.
>
> How can that be a money-saver?
>
> --K6NA
________________________________________________
PeoplePC: It's for people. And it's just smart.
http://www.peoplepc.com
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>From Silver Ward" <hwardsil1@mindspring.com Tue Jan 15 16:17:18 2002
From: Silver Ward" <hwardsil1@mindspring.com (Silver Ward)
Subject: [CQ-Contest] Contesting, Ham Radio and the Internet
References: <200201150450.g0F4oAWE014488@contesting.com>
<20020115000053.D16080@w9wi.com>
Message-ID: <007a01c19de0$1b6dcb60$29e6bfa8@ward>
> > Oh yeah, you have to learn Morse Code, though :-)
>
> And Morse is more obscure than Perl?
>
> $city =~ s/(\w+)/\u\L$1/g;
>
> Seriously, a certain part of the hacker (in the good sense) community
seems
> to enjoy obfuscated programming. Surely fluency in Morse would not be
seen
> as a bad thing by such people!
> --
> Doug Smith W9WI
Exactly. The techie competitiveness thrives on "I can do this hard thing
better than you. Watch this!" (bang, crash, screech, tinkle-tinkle-tinkle,
wobbadawobbadawobbadawobbadawobbadawobbada, thunk - sirens optional)
If only some hacker would "discover" the magic of sending encoded info
through the audio channel - there would be a stampede. Perhaps the correct
method is to FORBID the use of Morse Code in some way. The basic "Oh yeah?"
instinct should take care of the problem. We could pay some popular band to
embed some subliminal Morse Code on a CD and then "leak" to the rock press
that it says, "Britney Spears is the Devil". I think AA6TT has some
experience with Morse Code and music.
For my young nephews, I got their attention by giving them a Morse Code
buzzer, a table of the characters, and sending them postcards with "secret
messages" to decode. One said, "Your mom eats worms" - now THAT was cool.
Maybe they'll latch on to it, maybe not - but the urge to hack runs deep and
true.
Hams are generally just FAR too linear...
73, Ward N0AX
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>From Silver Ward" <hwardsil1@mindspring.com Tue Jan 15 16:26:12 2002
From: Silver Ward" <hwardsil1@mindspring.com (Silver Ward)
Subject: [CQ-Contest] Contesting, Ham Radio and the Internet
References: <Version.32.20020115062013.01b1b970@filter.xontech.com>
Message-ID: <008e01c19de1$5940b5a0$29e6bfa8@ward>
> >If ARRL is serious about replacing the line score pages
> >with an even somewhat equivalent number of contesting article pages, I
> think it might be a net gain.
>
> How can that be a money-saver?
>
> --K6NA
In the January issue, there were 5-1/2 pages of contest coverage (2-1/2 of
line scores) and 6 pages of Section News. I think the general idea is to
get rid of some of those dozen pages and change the remainder to
contest-related editorial content with less focus on X-beat-Y. So it saves
some dough and changes the focus.
73, Ward N0AX
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