I'm a little late tuning into this debate about a 24 hour category, since I
only browse the reflector once a week, but do have $.02 to add...
One of the contests I have been doing each year for the past few years is
the Commonwealth Contest, which runs for 24 hours and is only among
countries within the British Commonwealth. That one can get dreadfully
slow, and 1100QSOs in the 24 hour period can easily be a winning score. In
other words, it gets REAL boring. But they do offer something called the
"Restricted Category", which means you get to pick any 12 out of the 24
hours. Again...it does NOT have to be a continuous 12 hour period. Any 12
hours will do, though there is a minimum operating period permitted. Last
year I decided to enter this restricted category, and it was a ball. I made
771 QSOs, while the winning score in the 24 hour category was 963 QSOs. No
way were the extra 192 QSOs worth banging away for another 24 hours!
>From my point of view, the same thing should apply with ARRL DX. Even from
here in the Cayman Islands, that one gets real slow on Saturday night and
Sunday afternoon. Once I've got the first 400 or so in the log on each
band, it's just digging and begging after that. And how much worse must it
be from Europe? I should imagine a 24 hour category would get lots of
Europeans who would not otherwise participate to get on the air.
Bruce, ZF2NT
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