I have to agree completely. As I said in one of my earlier emails - this
should be all about making the 2 way contact - as you also point out.
Anyway you can set it up is fine. It will increase activity! One of the
biggest complaints I hear is "not enough participation", "where was
everybody", or "nobody was on", etc. Then we see OP's giving up and selling
off equipment and going "where there is more activity". Why spend the time,
money & effort if I can only (sometimes) work a few stations. I don't blame
them for abandoning the V/U bands.
How do we stop this from continuing to happen? Open the flood gates and
let the activity increase. Keep the rules simple. What would be so terrible
about that? But wait, you say, it's an unfair advantage for some stations?
How about those that live in a valley surrounded by hills vs. a mountain top
station - that's an unfair advantage, right? Should we add another rule or
multiplier/correction for "Height Above Average Terrain "? How about a ham
population density per grid square correction also. Yeah, let's call it the
HP/GS multiplier...or should it be an inverse multiplier.... I think you see
my point. We all operate with the best setup we can create within the
constraints of propagation, location, equipment, money, time, etc. Are we
havin' fun yet or what?
Let those that want truly "random" contacts without ANY pre-arranged
schedules/spotting, etc or running the bands - only call CQ to make a
contact (or two) on 2.3, 5.7, 10 GHz (or higher) and see how they do without
any coordination of time, where to aim/point, frequency, mode, etc - it
isn't going happen very often.... "I called CQ for hours, changed frequency,
aimed the beam, etc. but nobody was on!" To facilitate making a contact
should be by any means possible - but you still have to make the 2 way
complete contact exchange. Isn't this what it's all about?
QED.
Best 73's, (Please don't shoot/flame the messenger)
George, WA2VNV
----- Original Message -----
From: "Marshall Williams" <k5qe@sabinenet.com>
To: <VHFcontesting@contesting.com>
Sent: Monday, January 28, 2008 8:20 PM
Subject: Re: [VHFcontesting] rules
RRR....if we could just get the HFers out of the world of VHF, most
things would work better.
The VUAC made some very good changes to the VHF contest rules.....they
just did not go far enough. All the nit-picking restrictions are the
results of HF contesters injecting their way of doing things into VHF
contesting. There needs to be a General Rules for HF contesting and a
General Rules for VHF contesting. These two sets of rules do not
necessarily have to be closely related, since the nature of HF and VHF
contesting is significantly different. If the VUAC were to propose a
new set of rules that removed all the silly restrictions, the HF old
timers at ARRL would swat them down. It is most discouraging.
Take a look a the rules for the CQ VHF contest. Basically, anything
goes. You can look at the Internet(anywhere in the Internet, I
believe). The prop logger pages, spotting pages, realtime scheduling
pages, APRS, whatever. You can make schedules on line, you can call
them on the phone and remind them to get on. You can do whatever it
takes, BUT you still have to make a VALID contact. The CQ VHF contest
is fast becoming one of the Majors precisely because it is not burdened
down with arcane restrictions that were put there by HF ops that have no
clue what we do.
VHF contesting should about making the contact now about HOW you found
the station on the other end. Either you can work them, or you can't.
If you can work a station, how you found out that he was there is
immateriel. If you can't work the station, all the restrictive rules
are meaningless anyway. Focus on the CONTACTS.....the rest will come
along nicely. 73's to all ..... Marshall K5QE
aa4zz@aol.com wrote:
>Perhaps this change would be a good time to review the General Rules and
>see if some of them should be altered for VHF. It seems that often the
>issues that arise are with the general rules not the?VHF Rules and have to
>do with rules that mainly make sense in the HF world.
>
>73 Paul AA4ZZ
>
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Kenneth E. Harker <kenharker@kenharker.com>
>To: Nate Duehr <nate@natetech.com>
>Cc: VHFcontesting@contesting.com
>Sent: Mon, 28 Jan 2008 4:31 pm
>Subject: Re: [VHFcontesting] rules
>
>
>
>On Mon, Jan 28, 2008 at 02:06:03PM -0700, Nate Duehr wrote:
>
>
>>Tom Staley wrote:
>>
>>
>>>The only thing that would make it easier would be if all of the rules for
>>>a
>>>given contest were in one site or document, not 2 or 3.
>>>
>>>
>>Yeah, pretty much the only way to make this all easier is to keep the
>>rules to a minimum, and in ONE place.
>>
>>
>
>My understanding is that part of the reforms in contest coverage/promotion
>that have already begun (see the February, 2008 QST) within the ARRL
>Contest
>Branch will be to do just that. The rules were originally split into three
>parts (General, HF/VHF, contest-specific) mainly to save page space in QST,
>and there's no reason to do that in the web presentation of the rules. I
>think it will be real soon now that the Contest Branch web site will start
>displaying the rules for a contest in their entirety in one document.
>
>
>
_______________________________________________
VHFcontesting mailing list
VHFcontesting@contesting.com
http://lists.contesting.com/mailman/listinfo/vhfcontesting
_______________________________________________
VHFcontesting mailing list
VHFcontesting@contesting.com
http://lists.contesting.com/mailman/listinfo/vhfcontesting
|