Back in the early seventies when I was a new ham (licensed 2-3 years) and
starting to get very enthused about contesting, the QST contest writeups
were a HUGE factor in increasing my knowledge. I was fortunate that the
library at community college I attended for the first few years after high
school had a rather complete collection of QSTs for the prior fifteen years
or so. They were stored in a back room and the librarian would unlock the
room and let me sit back there for hours digesting contest results.
What was it that attracted my interest - line scores? Heck no! First, it
was pictures of contest stations; no, not stations with a DX40 and an
NC300, but pictures of competitive stations like W3GRF, K1LPL/3, XE1IIJ,
W7RM, etc. It was always interesting to see what these guys were running,
which gave me something to aspire to. Second were the tables showing QSOs
and mults (varied depending on the contest); again, showing me what was
possible. And finally, contest writeups which explained the contest - who
beat who, and why; significant scores, antecdotes, etc.; much more than
simple recitations of first, second and third places in each category.
Its been a number of years since I've read a contest writeup in a magazine
which I truly enjoyed. The CQWW writeups, IMHO, are better than the ARRL
ones because K3EST is deeply involved in the contest and understands what
went on. I commend the ARRL recent writeups (particularly the on-line
versions) by guest authors which have been a great improvement and will
continue to get better as these writers gain experience (that is, assuming
they don't burn out and quit). Still there is room for improvement - IMHO
there needs to be more pictures and more comparison breakdowns. For
example, the January VHF SS writeup lacked the traditional boxes with top
QSOs and grids per band. I'm not sure whether scoring info by band was
available in the results - even if so, sorting through hundreds of scores
is a lot of work for the reader when the author might be able to run a
database query and format it into a table with little work.
I believe that an attractive, interesting article about the results of a
contest has a place in QST. I'm not so much against including line scores
as I am a proponent of better use of space. I'd prefer to *read about the
contest* and opposed to going glassy-eyed over columns of data.
At the same time, we contesters need to get off our butts. We need to
submit more photos, stories, etc. about our contest efforts as material for
the writeup authors to use. And those of us who are capable of writing
need to step up and volunteer to do the writeups. N1ND's time is put to
much better use making the contest results happen.
FWIW.
73,
Dave/K8CC
|