No need to make any changes because we are at the bottom of a cycle that
does not want to go up, where conditions on a single band were poor on that
day.
Look what KA9FOX did QRP with the great 40 and 80m conditions.
What is the percentage of entries in the Sprint W vs E? That might be a
more telling statistic. Having lots of people on close to you gives you a
bunch of loud easy contacts on 80m and 40 as well. I could be wrong but
generally those west of the Mississippi seem to do better in domestic
contests overall but not always.
"A slip of the foot you may soon recover, but a slip of the tongue you may
never get over." Ben Franklin
-----Original Message-----
From: cq-contest-bounces@contesting.com
[mailto:cq-contest-bounces@contesting.com] On Behalf Of Steve London
Sent: Tuesday, February 10, 2009 2:00 PM
To: cq-contest@contesting.com
Subject: Re: [CQ-Contest] NA February Sprint
No doubt, 20 meters really stunk for everyone last weekend. However, a one
time anomaly is not a good reason to change what has worked well for the
past 25 years.
If you question whether this last Sprint was an anomaly, compare with the
results of the February, 2008 CW Sprint. The solar flux was exactly the same
- 70-71, but the number of 20 meter QSO's made by everyone, east and west
coast alike, was much higher.
73,
Steve, N2IC
Pete Smith wrote:
> Bravo, Ted! Succinctly stated, good data, asking the right questions.
>
> I favor a test of moving the February Sprint an hour earlier, but
> keeping the bands as is. Reasoning, chiefly, is that it's a minimal
> change and doesn't penalize guys without good 160M antennas, and doing
> it once (say, next year) should help to illuminate the cause of the
> much-more-profound bias in February.
>
> 73, Pete N4ZR
>
> At 02:20 PM 2/10/2009, Ted Bryant wrote:
>> On the 3830 reflector, Andy N2NT asked:
>>
>> "...Anyone for moving the Feb sprint an hour earlier or to 160m?
>> Well, at least till the spots come back..."
>>
>> Interesting ideas, Andy.
>>
>> In the Northern California Contest Club's annual Sprint "Ladder"
>> competition, there are three competitive categories. One is strictly
>> for NCCC members but the other two divide the U.S. into two groups:
>> stations East and West of the Mississippi River. Apparently someone
>> recognized that there must be some geographical/propagational bias
>> that warranted these groupings. Also, the Ladder competition is held
>> across 20/40/80 and 160 meters. Applying the NCCC Ladder
>> competition's categories to the claimed scores for the FEBRUARY
>> Sprint CW for the last 5 years shows some interesting details.
>>
>> # stations in top 20: West of the Miss East of the Miss
>> 2005 16 4
>> 2006 17 3
>> 2007 14 6
>> 2008 13 7
>> 2009 14 6
>>
>> # stations in top 10: West of the Miss East of the Miss
>> 2005 9 1
>> 2006 9 1
>> 2007 8 2
>> 2008 6 4
>> 2009 8 2
>>
>> # stations in top 5: West of the Miss East of the Miss
>> 2005 5 0
>> 2006 5 0
>> 2007 5 0
>> 2008 5 0
>> 2009 5 0
>>
>> To no one's surprise, I'm sure, these statistics show a pretty clear
>> advantage for stations West of the Mississippi River in the February
>> CW Sprint.
>>
>>
>> Let's look at the statistics for the last 5 SEPTEMBER CW Sprints:
>>
>> # stations in top 20: West of the Miss East of the Miss
>> 2004 9 11
>> 2005 14 6
>> 2006 9 11
>> 2007 10 10
>> 2008 8 12
>>
>> # stations in top 10: West of the Miss East of the Miss
>> 2004 4 6
>> 2005 8 2
>> 2006 6 4
>> 2007 4 6
>> 2008 6 4
>>
>> # stations in top 5: West of the Miss East of the Miss
>> 2004 2 3
>> 2005 4 1
>> 2006 4 1
>> 2007 3 2
>> 2008 4 1
>>
>> The September Sprint is much more equitable but it is still tough to
>> break into the top 5 if you are East of the Mississippi.
>>
>> So, to follow up on Andy N2NT's question:
>> - Should there be any changes made to the February Sprint?
>> - Should the February Sprint start an hour earlier?
>> - Should 160m be added? (or replace 20m?)
>> -or-
>> - Should Sprint results simply be reported with different/additional
>> categories? (sorry, Tree!)
>>
>> 73, Ted W4NZ
>>
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