[NLRS] ARRL VHF+ contest proposals: input invited ( L O N G )

[John P. Toscano]

Long post (greatly appreciated), but since my reply is also quite long, 
I tried to snip out what I could to keep the size somewhat manageable. 
I apologize in advance to those with slow dial-up connections.  :(

> Our recommendations had several basic goals.   Changes to the contest
> rules and awards programs should: 
>      1) encourage more people to work more other people 
>      2) encourage QSOs made over longer distances 
>      3) encourage more people to join in and participate

What about encouraging more people to use the less-frequently used, more 
challenging bands?  I think that this is another valid goal, and I think 
that some of the changes described below are counter-productive to this 
goal.

> ...we have recommended reverting to the rover scoring rules originally
 > established in 1991.  This change would encourage rovers to go to
 > rarer and more distant grids instead of staying closer to metropolitan
 > areas.

Seems like a positive thing to me, but things to keep in mind include 
(a) Rovers basically compete against rovers, so however the scores are 
computed, all rovers are treated the same way.  (b) Some stations won't 
go to new or rare or more distant grids because they are simply doing a 
casual rove, while other stations won't for the opposite reason -- they 
are doing such an intensive rove that there simply aren't enough hours 
in the contest to drive to one more grid.  The in-between stations would 
likely be the ones most likely to change strategies.

> ...we propose that rover station scores
> should not be counted towards club competition scores.  Rovers would
> continue to contribute substantially to increasing the scores of club
> members by providing numerous QSO points and activating new grids.

Well, it seems to penalize the clubs (like those in the Midwest) whose 
members are sparsely distributed, compared to the clubs who have plenty 
of folks in range to work.  But given sufficient incentive to keep the 
rovers on the roads in the first place, and the fact that the fixed 
stations still benefit from the rovers' participation with the points 
that THEY earn by working them, I guess it ends up being pretty fair 
overall.

> Finally, we believe it is time to be more definitive and state
> unequivocally that grid circling and captive roving are highly
> undesirable practices and that no rover station should engage in them. We
> recognize that due to the great disparities in population and geography,
> hard and fast analytical tests for these activities may not be possible
> but both these practices are well understood.   

I also don't think either practice is good for the contest participation 
population, so eliminating both practices sounds desirable to me.  I 
would STRONGLY URGE that the rules be more explicit than even what is 
stated above.  For example, substitute "any rover station engaging in 
them will be disqualified" instead of "no rover station should engage in 
them".  Then put teeth in it by giving EXAMPLES of metrics that could be 
applied to detect the practices, recognizing that the famous description 
of pornography, "I can't give you a definition, but I know it when I see 
it", is a very unsatisfying description, which is subject to abuse.  At 
least make the attempt to give guidance of what constitutes a violation, 
yet keep some flexibility for dealing with loophole seekers.

> The current rules provide for increasing QSO points as contacts are made
> on higher bands plus additional multipliers on each band for each new
> grid.  We propose to change the values for QSO points for all three
> contests.  Regardless of band you would receive two points for QSOs with
> your own grid and any adjacent grid, and three points for each QSO beyond
> that. QSOs with rover stations would count one QSO point each, regardless
> of distance.

Ouch!!!  I agree with some sort of point differential based on distance, 
but adamantly oppose making all bands count the same.

See NA�IA's well-thought-out comments on the reflector.

Contacts on the higher bands are usually more difficult to make, 
especially over longer distances, and so they should continue to be 
rewarded with higher points.  While I plan to continue upgrading my 902 
and 1296 MHz capabilities, and continue to plan to implement 2304 MHz 
capability before next August, my primary motivation to do so is the use 
of these bands for contesting.  I don't use these bands on a day-to-day 
basis.  Maybe when I retire sometime next decade and have more time on 
my hands to enjoy Ham Radio, I will have the opportunity to explore 
their capabilities more thorougly, like some folks I know.  But without 
contesting as a motiviation, it is unlikely I would have added them to 
my station (fixed or rover) by now, even though I love to learn, I love 
to explore the technical aspects of the hobby, etc.  Without some 
motivation, or with the reduction of existing motivation, the higher 
bands run the risk of becoming more barren wastelands than they already 
are.  Maybe the points per band aren't optimally balanced, but I 
strongly feel that there should be some progression of points for 
progressively higher (more challenging) frequencies.

I don't see the purpose of having rover contacts get only 1 point per 
QSO when fixed-to-fixed station contacts get more.  Sure, a rover has 
the advantage of moving to a new grid and working the same folks all 
over again, which the fixed station can't do.  But the effort to set up 
and operate a complicated rover station should not get PENALIZED instead 
of REWARDED.  Again, keeping in mind that rovers basically compete 
against one another means that a difference between fixed station 
scoring and rover station scoring could possibly be justified because 
the numbers don't need to be comparable to one another, just comparable 
among fixed stations or comparable among rover stations.  But I oppose 
the non-progressive QSO point idea for rover stations just as I oppose 
the non-progressive QSO point idea for higher bands.  As described 
above, a fixed station gets a bonus for working a more distant station. 
  Why should anyone doubt that it is even MORE difficult for a rover 
station to work over longer distances?  And more bands on a rover 
station can be much more difficult than on a fixed station.  How many 
antennas can you pack into a space small enough to be highway legal and 
not hit any low overpasses, and still get any kind of decent performance 
out of them?

Consider multipliers based on actual distance, which then implies the 
use of 6-digit grid squares instead of 4.  As long as we're going to 
break all the existing software score calculators anyway, we might as 
well go for what we really want.  (Also, keep in mind that as long as 
the Cabrillo format would allow a 6-digit grid without truncation, the 
only software that ABSOLUTELY would need to be changed would be the 
contest robot.  It could be programmed to compute the grid-to-grid 
distances for all participants.  They just submit the FROM and TO 
locations like usual, and it does the distance calculation.)  Sure, it 
is nice to see your score count up accurately DURING the contest, but 
until the existing software logging prorams are updated or replaced, the 
main thing is that the ARRL contest robot can do any needed calculations.

Does this discourage casual contesters?  Well, yes, for the folks who 
get involved completely spontaneously with no advance preparation, who 
don't know their 6-digit grid.  But anyone whose house is staying in one 
place most of the time (usually applies even in San Francisco), and who 
has a connection to the Internet, can look up their 6-digit grid on 
www.qrz.com by simply entering their callsign.  The only real penalty 
would be to a casual rover who has no GPS to show them their current 
exact location.  Potentially, this could be remedied by a rule stating, 
for EXAMPLE, that if a rover station only knows their 4-digit grid, the 
distance is computed as being 20 Km away from the nearest point in the 
grid to the other grid.  So, EN34js to EN34 would end up as a 20 Km 
contact since both are in the same grid, while EN34js to EN35 would be 
computed as 20 Km further away than the EN34/EN35 boundary (i.e., the 
distance from EN34js to EN35ja plus 20 Km).  The 20 Km figure was an 
arbitrary selection on my part, pick a different number if you wish.  As 
stated above, only the in-house ARRL contest software would need to get 
such calculations implemented right away.

> This change would reward those who can make more distant QSOs, ...

...except for rovers, who get no such reward under this proposal...

> ... and it
> would make a volume of short range microwave QSOs somewhat less critical
> to the final score although microwave grid multipliers would still be
> crucial to an all band entry.  It would also tend to make QSOs with
> casual participants and newcomers more appealing than constantly running
> from band to band.

Good operating practices (like those practiced by many folks I have 
worked) do not need to discourage casual participants who have only a 
few bands.  Good operators work the common bands first, make sure they 
work all viable stations on the current frequency before jumping to the 
next band, and make sure they clearly announce the intended frequencies 
(and order) of the next jumps.  And they routinely come back to a 
popular and strong band (like 2 meters) to pick up any stragglers who 
got lost along the way, and take them over to the missed bands.

Granted, I *HAVE* worked the other type of multi-band station also, who 
makes none of those efforts, and as soon as they hit a band I lack or 
can't make myself heard well enough on, I am out of luck.  Too bad for 
me, but too bad for them also...

And while on the matter of rewarding those participants who invest more 
in station upgrades and developing their communication skills under 
adverse conditions, Stan (WA1ECF) asks:

> Why not allow satellite QSOs in a VHF contest ?

Why not indeed?  Unfair advantage?  I don't really think so.  Most of 
the LEO (Low Earth Orbit) satellites can be worked with the gear that 
most avid contesters already have, they just need to learn some new 
skills to be applied, invest in some (free) tracking software to know 
when the birds are around, etc.  And the passes are so short and 
infrequent that no one is going to inflate their score tremendously with 
satellite QSO's.  As far as HEO (High Earth Orbit) satellites go, 
there's a potential rub there.  When AO-40 was working, it did require a 
bit of an investment in station gear (1269 MHz uplink and 2400 MHz 
downlinks are usually not reachable by 1296 or 2304 gear in common use), 
and a good antenna that can be accurately pointed is an enormous plus. 
And it remains "in view" for many hours at a time, so potentially a 
significant score boost could result.  Until/unless AO-40 imitates 
AO-7's resurrection from the dead feat, it is a moot point right now, as 
there are zero working HEO amateur satellites.  If it was felt to be a 
big issue, I suppose one could write a rule that limits satellite 
contacts to LEO birds for everyone and HEO birds only for multi-op 
stations, or something similar to that.

Besides, EME contacts are also legal, but no one seems to worry about 
that, because it requires a lot more station and effort investment than 
most VHF+ contesters are going to make, and the number of folks to be 
worked would be very small.

And now, back to the original posting...

> It seemed to us that at least one of the "big three" VHF+ contests ought
> to emphasize the VHF bands. We thus recommend that the June VHF QSO Party
> be limited to 50-1296 MHz only.  June is often the time for sporadic E
> openings on 6 meters - as was the case in 2003.  We would discontinue the
> Limited Multi category in the June VHF QSO Party only.

If you are going to pick a contest in which to eliminate the highest 
bands, maybe it should be the January contest where it is outright 
painful to be out in -20 degree weather and blowing snow.  Oh, that's 
right, not everyone lives out here in the frozen Upper Midwest...  :(

Do we need to change one contest just so it's different?

Besides, when 6M is open, the activity goes to 6M, and the higher bands 
get neglected anyway.  And in some years, 6M has been as dead as can be, 
and it's the higher bands that keep any interest in the contest going.

I guess this idea wouldn't hurt too bad, as I don't have anything higher 
than 1296 working yet anyway, but all the equipment for 2304 is bought 
and paid for, and I've been having 10 GHz dreams...  Oh well, what a 
selfish thought!  :(

> We recommend the establishment of a new Limited Single Operator category
> designed with the newcomer in mind - 50-144-432 MHz only, with low power
> operation only.

Sounds like a very reasonable idea.

But another idea that has been proposed elsewhere and seems to have 
fallen by the wayside was an FM-only category.  It could actually exist 
alongside your new Limited Single Operator category as a Single Operator 
FM-Only category.  My first contest was a blast, and all I had was a 
dual-band mobile FM rig temporarily placed in the house, connected to an 
omnidirectional vertical, plus a 3 watt 223.5 MHz handy-talkie connected 
to a modified automobile bumper-mount 220 antenna, also mounted on the 
roof of my house.  (See the sidebar on the front page of the contest 
report in QST -- http://www.arrl.org/contests/results/97/09vhfqso.pdf ) 
  For an FM-Only category, I would NOT necessarily omit the 220 MHz 
band, since it is not "rare", and we should encourage its greater use, 
but that's just my love of the band I guess.

> a)      Simplify the limit for low power operation to 150w for
> 50-144-222-432 MHz. 

And maybe raise the limit on 902 and 1296 to more than 10 watts?  Part 
of the motive of having a low-power category is to encourage competitive 
participation by folks with "only average" stations.  Long ago, more 
than 10 watts on 902 or 1296 was harder to come by, but nowadays it's 
not terribly difficult or expensive to get to the 20-50 watt range.  And 
that still leaves plenty of "headroom" for the full-bore contester to 
build a system with considerably higher power levels and the distance 
advantage that this can bring.

> b)      Allow DX-to-DX contacts for QSO point and multiplier credit, but
> the DX station must make at least one QSO with W/VE on each band for
> which QSOs are submitted.

Sounds fine to me, I always wondered why we officially discourage DX 
participation in the VHF and above contests.

> c)      Eliminate the rules that allow Multi-Operator stations to work
> their own operators on 2.3G and up.

Makes a LOT of sense to me.  I never quite understood why a multi-op 
station should get that privelege.

> We recommend expanding the format of the successful 10G and Up microwave
> contest and expand it to cover from 2.3 GHz and up.    The August UHF
> Contest would be discontinued after 2004.  It never reached a critical
> mass of support and entries.  

I understand the concern about low activity levels in the August UHF 
contest, but I'd rather not see it abolished.  It's a great contest for 
a rover, 'cause you can leave behind your cumbersome 6M and 2M antennas.

On the other hand, if it turns out that 2004 is the last year for an 
August UHF Contest, wouldn't it be neat if NLRS blew it out in a blaze 
of glory with a full-blown effort and a huge first-place score from a 
lot of (NON-CAPTIVE) rovers helping to boost the score of a powerful 
single-op or multi-op station.  (Thinking about N0HJZ's earlier 
proposal, which hasn't triggered a whole lot of traffic on the reflector.)

> 1)      Add one more weekend in April or May to the existing two-weekend
> cumulative contest.   

April or May????  This contest is already stretched out over 2 months 
(August and September).  Why not at least aim for July, August, and 
September as the three months, instead of dragging it out over a 
5-month-long period?  Then we'd have VHF or above contests in January, 
June, July, August, and September.

By the way, we need a WRITTEN RULE to deal with callsign changes for any 
contest like this that runs longer than a single weekend.  Vanity calls 
are getting awfully popular (I should know, right?) and a particular 
operator could have a different callsign on the 2 or 3 weekends of the 
contest, even though his/her identity hasn't changed.  (This happened to 
me, but I didn't get to "play" in the second week of the 10G contest 
that year, so the problem was averted fairly painlessly.  All my 
contacts were logged as KB0ZEV.)  I'm thinking of something like a rule 
that says if an operator's callsign changed between the weeks of the 
contest, for the 2nd (or 3rd) week of the contest, they have to use 
their OLD callsign (to prevent being counted as a new operator) followed 
by a stroke and their NEW callsign (to remain FCC legal, only the new 
callsign is valid at that time for ID purposes), e.g. in my case, it 
would have been "KB0ZEV/W0JT".  Awkward, but fair and unambiguous.

> 2)      Include 2.3G, 3.4G and 5.7G bands.  

Ok, maybe I *WILL* continue with plans to put 2304 on the air after all. 
  And maybe I *WON'T* forget about 3456 and 5760 forever.  These 3 bands 
could use a boost in participation level, so if the UHF contest is 
eliminated, this sounds like a reasonable compromise.

> 3)      Have four basic categories - 2.4/3.4/5.7G, 10G only, 10G and up,
> and all band (2.4G and up). Each major category would include portable
> and home-based categories. 

Hmmm, I definitely agree on a 10G only category, and on a 10G and up 
category (for the folks who are willing to drag their single-band or 
dual-band microwave dishes around, but don't fee the urge to work the 
"lower" bands and all the extra antennas and such).  And, of course, an 
all-band category for the folks who can't get enough RF no way no how. 
But... I think that the other category that might be useful would be 2.4 
through 10G rather than 2.4 through 5.7G.  If you look at band activity 
in prior contests like the analysis I did for the year 2002 contests,
   http://nlrs.dropboxone.net/BandAnalysis-2002-ALL.htm
you see that 10G is nearly as active as 2.4 and 3.4G and greater than 
5.7G, so I think that it would be reasonable to expect that someone 
might want to work 2.4 and 10G without competing against the all-band 
group.  I admit it, I have 2304 in the box (not on the air yet, just "a 
little" more work to do), and I figure that 10 GHz is going to be my 
next band acquisition...  I'm not biased, am I?  :)

> 4)      Perhaps call them the X-band contests to increase interest.

Even though they are really S, X, K bands?  What's up with that?

> 2)      Work to establish an Internet template for entry of small and
> medium sized logs.   Implemented in January 2004.

Really?  Where is that?  I was thinking of doing something like that for 
the NLRS web site, but if the wheel's already been invented...

> 3)      Add a club competition to the June VHF QSO Party.  Implemented
> for 2003 contest.

Wonderful!

> 4)      Work to find good authors and to encourage more regional
> reporting of VHF+ contest results.  This had been in place for more 
>                than a year now.  Staff is working hard to identify
> authors and would welcome volunteers, particularly experienced contesters

I can't wait to see more coverage in QST.  Especially since the contest 
reports in QST have been shrunk dramatically in favor of the web-based 
reporting.  Mind you, I simply *LOVE* the ability to search the web for 
the COMPLETE grid and QSO counts per band for any and all participants, 
and I *LOVE* the extended coverage in the web article for members, but 
there's also something nice about having your callsign in print even if 
you didn't make the top ten...

> 6)      Encourage more activity by developing a high-quality grid square
> map of the United States.  A very nice laminated, color grid square map 
> covering North America was released in June 2003.

Looks good, but an obvious place to add mention of it is on the page:
   http://www.arrl.org/locate/gridinfo.html
Promote it!  This was the first I heard of it.

> Awards
> ----------
> 4)      For VUCC awards on 50 through 1296 MHz and Satellite, all
> contacts must be made from a location or locations within the 
> same grid locator or locations in different grid locators
> no more than 200 kilometers apart [the approximate distance between 
> the corners of a grid square].  (Currently they have to be
> made from the same grid square or from distances no more than 
> 50 miles apart.)

If you are really considering that degree of "loosening" of the location 
requirements, please consider a bit more slack in the SHF category also, 
which currently reads, "For SHF awards,contacts must be made from a 
single location, defined as within a 300-meter diameter circle. ". 
Maybe something like "within a 6 x 6 array of sub-grids (6-digit 
Maidenhead grid locators) or no more than 50 Km apart", in other words, 
roughly 1/4th of the distance for the 50-1296 MHz and Satellite 
category.  Sure, it would be nice to have a 10G dish high up on a tower 
and do all of your operating from within a 3-meter diameter circle, but 
many operators who might work from home with a portable setup would also 
need to go to at least one or two other nearby locations to make another 
QSO.  If that seems too generous, then maybe a 3 x 3 array of sub-grids 
or no more than 25 Km apart.

Anyway, those are my thoughts on the matter.
73 and good contesting to all,
de W�JT