For the record I am not, never have been and never will be interested in anything Contest or RSGB related. Despite several attempts to bully shame or to do whatever it was thought it would take to get me involved in contests and the rsgb over the years, all of which fell of deaf ears and they always will.
I personally hate contests and can not see the point to them. It is not a qso to my mind, you are number 82 goodbye. So I see this as a futile waste of time and power will always trump anyway, it doesn’t hatter how good an operator you are.
I have no problem with people who want to do contests, how they use their time is up to them. I do have a problem with contestants trying desperately to ram contests down my throat and almost begging people to become operators for contests. It will never happen and the main culprit of this sort of behavior was just banging his head against a brick wall, but then there is little between his ears anyway.
As to the rsgb. Never had a use for them, Over the years I have known many folk who have asked the rsgb for help and all they got for their trouble was a big fat zero. We don’t get involved in that seems to be their favorite response. T
They RSGB are a business nothing more. They do not care about radio amateurs all they care about is getting their hands of the contents of the ham operators wallet. I base this on my personal experiences when I have encountered the rsgb in the past.
As to organizing the exams etc yes I accept they have a role to play there, but only because no one else wants to do it. The exams I am sorry to say are so far out of date, particularly beyond intermediate exams in my opinion.
Seems to me to just be an excuse for making money. The advanced in particular strikes me a being an exam for an exams sake and it is so out of date and largely irrelevant in this day and age and for what you actually get for doing this course I really could not see the ends justifying the means
It might have been relevant in the 50’s when people built their own radios and had to fix them themselves. But these days dealing with multi layer boards, surface mount components and custom chips. Which is beyond most people, unless they are seriously into hobby electronics. it seems to have little relevance in these times we are living in now. but take that content away and you haven’t enough content for a course, let alone an exam.
This is why I never took the exam. I was going to, but in the end because of the the total irrelevance of it. I though why the hell am I bothering with this crap.
But in defense of the rsgb reps not the rsgb itself (which is just a company and are only interested in your money,) I have to say this is not usually the case for the people who work for them, who are often dedicated people trying to help others. The trouble is the core of the organization is rotten and built on one premise and one premise only, how to make money? So they do not care about radio hams.