19-01-2018, 08:05 AM
I think you need to encourage people to have and use home stations to then have more success on contest weekends with extra activity. In my view the issue of lack of activity extends beyond the scope of just contests, and even amateur radio as a whole, its also due to political climate, housing availability and affordability, employment, council regulations, climate change, cost of equipment, better things to do, unregulated and unresolved interferrence, lack of prize money or reward for effort unlike some other sports and hobbies with competitions.
With a lack of stations operating through normal week days and weekends this translates to lack of numbers for contests. Majority of people aren't going to spend thousands of $$$ just to use a radio a few times a year for a contest, its never going to work, unless perhaps there is some monetary reward for entering and doing well. Money talks, but people have told me before that prize money cant be done.
Nothing can change this except peoples inbuilt enthusiasm for operating radio which gathers momentum over time if the right influences are in place.
Having said this, its very interesting to see how many stations suddenly are on the air when there is a good 2m sporadic E opening like we had earlier in the week.
I had brought up an idea for getting more people operating from home and portable on a whole year basis, the Annual VHF UHF Grid Square challenge. This runs from July to June over 12 months and then starts over. I had spoken to a number of WIA board members including ex members who said they would look into this and get something happening, including contest managers etc, there was talk of adding a page on the WIA WEB SITE similar to where people can update their DXCC and other listings on the HF bands, but nothing ever came of it despite all the talk. I was also told that it would be VERY EASY to add this onto the WIA web site.
I think this would be a good idea to gain activity and get people more enthused. People gather grids the whole year and can update their score as they go and work the good openings, not just contest weekends when there is no propagation, but the usual contest weekends would help to add to the whole year grid tally when people go out portable, so there could then be more people looking for these squares.
With a lack of stations operating through normal week days and weekends this translates to lack of numbers for contests. Majority of people aren't going to spend thousands of $$$ just to use a radio a few times a year for a contest, its never going to work, unless perhaps there is some monetary reward for entering and doing well. Money talks, but people have told me before that prize money cant be done.
Nothing can change this except peoples inbuilt enthusiasm for operating radio which gathers momentum over time if the right influences are in place.
Having said this, its very interesting to see how many stations suddenly are on the air when there is a good 2m sporadic E opening like we had earlier in the week.
I had brought up an idea for getting more people operating from home and portable on a whole year basis, the Annual VHF UHF Grid Square challenge. This runs from July to June over 12 months and then starts over. I had spoken to a number of WIA board members including ex members who said they would look into this and get something happening, including contest managers etc, there was talk of adding a page on the WIA WEB SITE similar to where people can update their DXCC and other listings on the HF bands, but nothing ever came of it despite all the talk. I was also told that it would be VERY EASY to add this onto the WIA web site.
I think this would be a good idea to gain activity and get people more enthused. People gather grids the whole year and can update their score as they go and work the good openings, not just contest weekends when there is no propagation, but the usual contest weekends would help to add to the whole year grid tally when people go out portable, so there could then be more people looking for these squares.