As a contester who has operated at home, as a guest op, and has gone on
trips to far off places for major contests many times since 1966, I am
opposed to limiting operating time for single ops. I wish the CQ WPX
time had not been cut back to 36 hours. I am pretty much OK with
limited times for 160M and 10M contests when the off-time would have
been unproductive anyway. But for ARRL DX and CQ WW and the like, I
would hate to make a trip overseas for a contest and have to sit (or
sleep) for a number of hours when I could be operating and giving out a
rare multiplier. This has been my regret for the past two years going
to PJ4 for CQ WPX CW. I feel that the difference in number one and
number two in a category will be defined by which 12 hours the operators
decide to take off. This is something that is planned in advance and
adjusted during the contest, but, only in hindsight can you tell who
made the correct decision (usually the one with the highest score). A
limited operating time in ARRL DX contests for single operators would
certainly limit the number of QSOs that I could make at home and on
trips overseas.
I suspect that limited operating time for many would mean that many
would quit at that mark, rather than continuing until it isn't fun any
more. We see that often when there is some recognition for making say
200 QSOs. How many ops stop at 200? Many. You can tell by the
results. Yes, I know that a few of them were motivated to keep going
until they got 200 rather than quitting with a lower number, but I guess
it would be at least as many QSOs lost because of the limit.
Also, these limits results in less activity on the marginal bands. I
made 3 QSOs on 160 in CQ WPX CW in 2010 and zero in 2011 because of the
36-hour limit. 80M and 10M would also see a similar drop in activity
(except for the single band and multi-multi entrants).
I realize that I may not be able to do 48 hours straight in a contest
one day (when the contest starts at 8 PM, I have been up about 60 hours
by the time the contest is over) and, when that happens, I'd prefer to
decide on my own limit, not an arbitrary one imposed by the rules.
And, I say this at age 69.
73 with good will toward all,
John, K4BAI (ex HL9KQ, TG, VP7, PJ2, HH2, 8P9, J7, now PJ4, and others).
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