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The "newcomer quotient" --- a serious policy question
KØHB wrote: Just finished another annual running to the two-weekend Sweepstakes contest (one weekend Morse, one weekend phone). cut The numbers below show the percentage of my QSO's which had a recieved "check" in the current and 10 previous years (i.e., this year I counted "95" thru"05", last year "94" through "04", etc.) (Tabular info best viewed in 'fixed width' font) Year CW% Phone% Combined% 2001 7.4% 24.0% 17.5% 2002 6.9 18.8 13.5 2003 7.0 14.8 10.9 2004 4.5 14.0 8.7 2005 4.0 14.0 9.9 As I mentioned, it's no surprise that newcomer contesters are more likelyto be on phone, but the really scary part is that the overall percentages (regardless of mode) in the "licensed-in-the-last-10-years" are dropping so dramatically, almost halved in just 5 years. If the trend of "newcomers active in contesting" is a representative subset of "newcomers active on the air in general" (as I suspect it is) then the future of our hobby has a rather disturbing look. One I suspect you are wrong few newcomers I know of and by the standard you are using I am one still are that interested in contesting, personaly I looks at and tend to chuckle I also hear the tales of the that try and get flamed for not "doing it right" as if the flamers was born with this knowledge or receieved it as a implant What are we (all of us) going to do to reverse this ominous trend? inventing better contests might be a start -- 73, de Hans, K0HB -- |
#2
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The "newcomer quotient" --- a serious policy question
"an old friend" wrote inventing better contests might be a start I was more interested in activity in general, not just contests, but hey, that's a fair comment. What would make a "better contest" for you, especially as it would relate to newcomers? What features of current contests interest you and what features annoy you? What would you add that would cause you to send in a log? 73, de Hans, K0HB |
#3
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The "newcomer quotient" --- a serious policy question
KØHB wrote: "an old friend" wrote inventing better contests might be a start I was more interested in activity in general, not just contests, but hey,that's a fair comment. What would make a "better contest" for you, especially as it would relateto newcomers? less cookie cutterness a contest where the exachance was to in fact say something. I mean I do FD becuase it is club thing mostly but I feell silly going aroing around saying 8A MI What features of current contests interest you and what features annoy you? little about the current contests (those that I am aware realy interests me, FD holds the most appear but with the imporvised nature of the setup What would you add that would cause you to send in a log? maybe a contest where the points were on how long you were able to hold a contact how much airtime you were able to fill with a near stanger just some thoughts 73, de Hans, K0HB |
#4
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The "newcomer quotient" --- a serious policy question
"an old friend" wrote maybe a contest where the points were on how long you were able to hold a contact how much airtime you were able to fill with a near stanger Be interesting to see how you could set up the scoring matrix...... If it was simply length of contact (not the amount of information exchanged) then the real slow talkers/slow senders would win. A built in advantage for southerners! Would you have an upper limit on a contact length, and would the scoring be linear...... for example 1 point per each 30 seconds of each contact, or hockey-stick scoring with 1 point for 30 seconds, 5 points for one minute, 100 points for five minutes, and a bazzilion points for an hour? What would you use for multipliers? The thought occurs that newcomers are often somewhat mic-shy --- would they be drawn to this kind of activity? 73, de Hans, K0HB |
#5
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The "newcomer quotient" --- a serious policy question
KØHB wrote: "an old friend" wrote maybe a contest where the points were on how long you were able to hold a contact how much airtime you were able to fill with a near stanger Be interesting to see how you could set up the scoring matrix...... If it was simply length of contact (not the amount of information exchanged) then the real slow talkers/slow senders would win. A built in advantage for southerners! Would you have an upper limit on a contact length, and would the scoring be linear...... for example 1 point per each 30 seconds of each contact, or hockey-stick scoring with 1 point for 30 seconds, 5 points for one minute, 100 points for five minutes, and a bazzilion points for an hour? What would you use for multipliers? The thought occurs that newcomers are often somewhat mic-shy --- would they be drawn to this kind of activity? 73, de Hans, K0HB Hans I suspect that many newcomers are intimidated by the action in contests like SS. They know they have no realistic expectation of winning. The efforts like participation pins may help a bit. Again looking at SS the first hours are quite frantic and top contesters give the exchange very fast. If a newcomer isn't quite sure what was said or what he must say they are not likely to respond. I have heard some operators patiently explain what the exchange is and help a first timer. However this appears to be a relative rarity as it slows down the rate. How about an incentive for the big scorers to work the newcomers? More points per QSO if the check is less than 5 years old? More points if the serial number is also below a certain threshhold? If it makes the big guns more likely to be helpful I thin it would encourage those that are a bit timid to join in. Also, can the contest logs be used to get credit toward ARRL awards like WAS the way it used to be for DXCC? Given the cost of QSLs and the return rate, that could also be an incentive for some newcomers. BTW - How did you do? 73, John K4BNC |
#6
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The "newcomer quotient" --- a serious policy question
"John" wrote How about an incentive for the big scorers to work the newcomers? More points per QSO if the check is less than 5 years old? I really LIKE that one! The contest sponsor would need to validate it however, or operators would adopt an artificially low number just to generate a run. More points if the serial number is also below a certain threshhold? I'm not sure that one is workable ..... everyone starts out with serial #1, and the object is to rapidly increment that number so this would be a disincentive to do well, even to the newcomer (unless I don't understand what you propose). Also, can the contest logs be used to get credit toward ARRL awards like WAS the way it used to be for DXCC? Given the cost of QSLs and the return rate, that could also be an incentive for some newcomers. In effect this is already in place. I uploaded my log to LoTW 10 minutes after the close of SS PH and already had close to 50 QSL's waiting for me. Right now LoTW supports just DXCC, but WAS and WAZ are next (soon) to be implemented. BTW - How did you do? Not as well as I'd hoped. 773/79 on CW and 1043/80 on Phone weekend. Phone weekend was especially frustrating, because conditions seemed so good. Don't know what I did wrong, but just couldn't ratchet it up to the right level. First few hours were OK (not great) with rates in the 70's, but then struggled with long bands until about midnight. Couple good hours on 40 after midnight, but not enough stations left to recover from the slow evening hours. Had a pretty good Sunday afternoon on 40 starting about 2000Z, but I think I was paying too much attention to my "half radio" (Drake R4C) looking for missing mults. Ended up about 400 Q's off my target. May be time to look at a new radio. I know I'm missing a lot of weak stations on my run freqs, especially on 40M/80M. The Icom 775 attenuator doesn't seem to be any good on those bands, and consequently the front end folds up with a lot of strong adjacent RF. When N0AT, KT0R, NN7L, K0AD (all within a couple miles) stroke up on 80M you could power an amp by rectifying the RF off my antenna field! 73, de Hans, K0HB |
#7
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The "newcomer quotient" --- a serious policy question
KØHB wrote: "John" wrote How about an incentive for the big scorers to work the newcomers? More points per QSO if the check is less than 5 years old? I really LIKE that one! The contest sponsor would need to validate it however, or operators would adopt an artificially low number just to generate a run. More points if the serial number is also below a certain threshhold? I'm not sure that one is workable ..... everyone starts out with serial #1, and the object is to rapidly increment that number so this would be a disincentive to do well, even to the newcomer (unless I don't understand what you propose). Probably not clearly stated and hard to implement. I was thinking of someone with a small number for the time since contest started. That is, some way to encourage working those who might just be making occasional contacts. Also, can the contest logs be used to get credit toward ARRL awards like WAS the way it used to be for DXCC? Given the cost of QSLs and the return rate, that could also be an incentive for some newcomers. In effect this is already in place. I uploaded my log to LoTW 10 minutes after the close of SS PH and already had close to 50 QSL's waiting for me. Right now LoTW supports just DXCC, but WAS and WAZ are next (soon) to be implemented. LOTW goes part way but I think the old DXCC method was even simpler although it took longer. Once the contest results were published you could just claim credit for a station worked in the contest. However as I recall the number you could claim per DXCC submission was limited unlike LOTW. It sure helped me back in the days when I was chasing DXCC QSLs. BTW - How did you do? Not as well as I'd hoped. 773/79 on CW and 1043/80 on Phone weekend. Phone weekend was especially frustrating, because conditions seemed so good. Don't know what I did wrong, but just couldn't ratchet it up to the right level. First few hours were OK (not great) with rates in the 70's, but then struggled with long bands until about midnight. Couple good hours on 40 after midnight, but not enough stations left to recover from the slow evening hours. Had a pretty good Sunday afternoon on 40 starting about 2000Z, but I think I was paying too much attention to my "half radio" (Drake R4C) looking for missing mults. Ended up about 400 Q's off my target. May be time to look at a new radio. I know I'm missing a lot of weak stations on my run freqs, especially on 40M/80M. The Icom 775 attenuator doesn't seem to be any good on those bands, and consequently the front end folds up with a lot of strong adjacent RF. When N0AT, KT0R, NN7L, K0AD (all within a couple miles) stroke up on 80M you could power an amp by rectifying the RF off my antenna field! 73, de Hans, K0HB Still a good score. I had troubles with the 40M vertical on Saturday night. SWR had gone up so high I couldn't use the amp. FIxed it next morning. AS far as I can tell the guy mowing the nextdoor lawn must have run into the posts holding up the coax and broke the ground connection. Still managed to make some contacts with it. Made my goal here of 80 in 80. Last one was VE2; that one always seems to be the hard one here. John |
#8
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The "newcomer quotient" --- a serious policy question
KØHB wrote:
(asking about ways to attract newcomers to contesting): Well, Hans, I'm not a newcomer, and I don't qualify for QCAO either. But here are some ideas from what I remember as a newcomer: 1) More entry classes for the "little guy". This has already been done on FD, and to a limited extent in SS. The problem is that the new-to-contests ham with a midlevel 100 W transceiver, paper logs and G5RV is in the same category as the big gun with multiple big beams, an IC-7800 and every automated doodad conceivable. 2) Put the results back in QST - all the results. First time my call was in QST was for SS scores. Why shouldn't the newcomers get the same thrill? Website is *NOT* the same thing. 3) Perhaps the check could be changed from "year of birth" to "number of times you've operated this contest", with a bonus for new folks. Oldtimers couldn't adopt a low number because it would be easily detected. This also helps the folks who may have held a license for years but who are new to certain aspects of amateur radio. 4) More contests (!) but also more variety. The QRP folks do this with their sprints, and there used to be 4 CD parties a year. For example: - A "mini-SS" in late summer that lasts only 6-12 hours and you can work the same station on different bands - Low-power (150 w max) contests - Contest exchanges that include something that changes with each QSO. For example, you might have a list of 10-12 items like op's birthday, name, grid square (on HF!)rig/key/mike/antenna/exact power in use, zip code, old callsign, etc. One item from the list would be exchanged with each QSO, and the item would change after each QSO. When the list ran out you'd start it again. For a real challenge, require a couple of items in each exchange. - Single-band and couple-of-band contests to concentrate the action. 73 de Jim, N2EY |
#9
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The "newcomer quotient" --- a serious policy question
"KØHB" wrote in message nk.net... ///////FLUSHED/////// Hey Hans. How much is a Shot 'N Beer down at the Legion Hall now? I hear the war stories spin faster and better, after a few shot 'n beers. |
#10
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The "newcomer quotient" --- a serious policy question
KØHB wrote: "an old friend" wrote maybe a contest where the points were on how long you were able to hold a contact how much airtime you were able to fill with a near stanger Be interesting to see how you could set up the scoring matrix...... If it was simply length of contact (not the amount of information exchanged) then the real slow talkers/slow senders would win. A built in advantage for southerners! well itcould certainly promote slow code use Would you have an upper limit on a contact length, and would the scoring be linear...... for example 1 point per each 30 seconds of each contact, or hockey-stick scoring with 1 point for 30 seconds, 5 points for one minute, 100 points for five minutes, and a bazzilion points for an hour? very likely some upper length and likely in blockmaybe linear maybe not part of the point is to avoid the Salm bang thank you maam feeling I get at FD and the few other contests I have been in What would you use for multipliers? The thought occurs that newcomers are often somewhat mic-shy --- would they be drawn to this kind of activity? peronsonaly I am looking forward to being able to effectively bein things likke a RTTY contest I have heard of or id love to see some kind of SSTV contest althought the noise would likely drive everyone else nuts but collecting for contest a number of SSTV images and maybe some kind of multipliers like FD added to something for the igmage quality perhaps BTW congrats on sparking some On topic stuff here Hans well done 73, de Hans, K0HB |
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