It is normal common sense that contesters would not operate on QRP frequencies, in the heat of the contest however … …
To avoid contests either on CW or SSB I’ve chosen to activate on Mondays or Fridays, result however is not so many chasers and less S2S…
Simply have organisers check the operating frequencies of the participating OM/club via a mandatory mention of freq in the log, if longer then 5 min’s on a qrp or other reserved frequency = disqualification.
If organisers can disqualify people for self spotting the will be able to do that too.
Hi Walt - given that there are 52 weeks in the year, hence 104 weekend days - that means every weekend there is an Amateur Radio contest on both Saturday and Sunday. are you sure? I thought there were 4 or 5 weekends without a contest - I guess they’ve been swallowed up as well now?
I have not found a single weekend without some kind of contest in the past year. There was one weekend in 2018 when 17 different HF contests were listed concurrently! There are even contests on Christmas Day and New Year’s Day.
Ed and Walt,
thank you for the information! As I am not a contester, and never be, I had no idea of this “Crowd”. The only solution is to let free for QRP stations a good number of weekends or put penalties for QRP frequencies, as Juerg proposes.
Good point - it needs to apply to all contests not just those run by the ARRL, RSGB etc. How that would be enforceable, in EVERY country I don’t know however in the US and Germany it could be added to the Amateur radio service related laws.
Yes, but just picture it, Ed - the FCC would publish a proposed rule making and ask for comments and the screams of rage from the contest enthusiasts would be audible over here, and that would be the end of it!
The only way to get any change is to get the big contest organisers to enforce some rules regarding operating limits. i.e. no contest operation in 7.025-7.035MHz say. It’s possible to record the audio for a section of the band from several webSDRs and to get the contest organisers to accept the recordings from multiple SDRs as evidence of stations breaking the rules. Only when you get the big organisers to act against people operating outside the spirit will you get the problem solved. If (and it’s a big if) you could get ARRL and CQWW to take action you stand a chance of stopping this. If ARRL agreed today it would still take 5 years before the word was out that ungentlemanly operation (QRO SSB activity in the de facto QRP CW subbands) would result in censure and sanction.
However, that doesn’t mean Juerg’s proposal isn’t worth supporting. Make a noise and stink about this and get the subject raised by the big contest organisers.
One last point that we all need to consider… if there weren’t so many people taking part in contests then there wouldn’t be so many contests being run.
Or like any government action it would require a sub - sub committee to look at it take 5 years to do nothing, cost millions in the process and at the end nothing happens (apart from some politicians and lawers being able to buy yet another yacht for their fleet …)
True, Andy, but at the same time the number of stations needed to saturate a band is far smaller than the number of stations licensed to operate on that band. Contest enthusiasts are a minority, albeit a very noisy one!
I agree with the spirit of Jürg’s proposal and I also acknowledge that there would be practical difficulties introducing such measures. However, I do think it is important to promote and encourage QRP and that we should at least try to bring about an improvement . If pressure to acknowledge and protect QRP frequencies can be sustained via the various organisations that dictate and recommend licensing terms and operating practices in contests or other types of operation then perhaps, in time, we may be afforded more protection?
I have never made any request to an IARU representative. Can anyone advise me on how I can find out who I should contact within the UK please?
I think there is also a fundamental consideration. I do not know how it is in other countries around the offspring in amateur radio and the amateur radio itself, but in Germany we are worried about the offspring.
Many also end the hobby because they have no or poor antenna capabilities.
Especially with makeshift antennas, many make qrp.
If you can not run a weekend anymore, you can leave it soon.
At some point then the few big guns asks, why they take away the frequencies.
