KH6TY wrote: > > > There are VHF contests that are limited to only certain bands out of > all available. There are HF contests for just phone, or CW or RTTY, so > it should be no problem for HF contest sponsors to only allow credit > for Q's made between certain frequencies on each band.
I do radio with boy scout troops when camping. And find increasingly, that contests are making weekend operation very difficult. It's hard to find a weekend without a major contest, sometimes more than one. Like many hams say about something they are not involved in, I don't mind contesting, but find it violates many "good neighbor" policies. Enough that if I listen and hear it's a contest weekend, I don't bother to try to demonstrate radio to the scouts, or even just make casual qso's. Just not worth the frustration. I'd like to see a voluntary approach like you described. Add multiplier if you stay out of the top x% of the voice band, or avoid psk sub-bands in a RTTY contest. IE: implement a good neighbor approach to not taking over 100% of a given band segment for the contest. Same number of contacts will take place, it will just happen over a longer period. So you won't have stations Sunday afternoon hitting autokey "CQ contest" six times for hours at end without response. I've heard a rtty station do that 1-2 hours on an common ALE frequency without contact. The issue is that most HF contests do not require (or even check) the frequency of operation, just band. I'm good friends with a very avid contester (not that there's anything wrong with that) who is also a scout leader, and even he is now starting to see the negative impact on non-contesters. All that said, I see this issue going away in a decade or two. :-) Have fun, Alan km4ba
