Wait...the proposed new date for a UHF contest is " [t]he weekend that
includes the first Sunday of May"?!?
That is also the weekend of the New England QSO Party (starts 4pm EDT),
the 7th call area QSO party (6am PDT), the Delaware QP (1pm EDT) and the
Indiana QP (11am CDT). That totals 16 states! This means hams in 16
states will have to decide which contest to primarily play in.
I have only participated in the ARRL UHF contests as a Limited Rover and
have only participated in the 7QPs as a mobile station. I love both
contests, but, frankly, I would probably chose to be /M in the 7QP over
/R in the UHF contest. It is a big deal in 7-land. I make 3 times the
QSOs in the one 18-hour day. I believe the 7QP is only behind
California in participation for state/regional QSO parties. And since
INQP, NEQP and 7QP have "reciprocal" QSO scoring, these three contests
almost make a national QP. N1MM has a special mode for people to play
in all three simultaneously.
The ARRL is proposing to increase participation in a contest where 174
logs were submitted last year (and has never produced more than 250
logs) by competing against the 7QP (579 logs in 2015, 6,524
participants), the NEQP (414 logs in 2015), the INQP (260+ logs in
2015), and eight or nine other contests as well. That just doesn't
make any sense.
It seems the only justification for moving the contest date is to make
it more attractive for rovers. But more than a few rovers also do HF
mobile contests. So, I expect moving the UHF contest to this date
could actually hurt rover participation. The same might be true for
people who enjoy undertaking portable operations.
Also, there happens to be a Microwave sprint scheduled this year on that
weekend. The ARRL would sort of be usurping the date of the microwave
sprint.... Seems rather rude.
When you submit your comments to the ARRL, please consider mentioning
the conflicts with other contests for the proposed weekend.
Best,
Darryl
ww7d
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