The fact that one can only work a station once in SS is a great
equalizer, making it possible to compete with modest antennas from
nearly anywhere in NA. I love NAQP, but propagation can put some parts
of the country at a great disadvantage. For example, when skip is long
on the high bands, the coasts have a big advantage over the central US.
Likewise, when propagation is poor on the low bands, those in densely
populated areas have an advantage. In SS, no matter where you are, you
have a pretty good chance of working each station on SOME band under all
sorts of conditions. There are, of course, lots of examples of top
scores in SS from stations with modest antennas. The top spot in 1967 CW
was won with a TH3 and some wires.
I don't know what the solution is to the Sunday doldrums, but I'd prefer
the one contact rule rather than one per band. Perhaps a short contest
period starting earlier on Saturday would work.
73,
Scott K9MA
On 11/7/2017 09:51, Kelly Taylor wrote:
I like the idea of two QSOs split by time, as it means stations with the big low-band
antennas aren’t necessarily going to run up the rate meter all over again.
If you split it by high-band vs. low-band, you might not actually solve the
Sunday doldrums problem, as the big stations might just work through all their
second QSOs Saturday night anyway.
As well, making the split high-band vs. low-band will hand the contest to the stations with
the big low-band antennas. The way SS works now, big low-band antennas aren’t a huge
advantage because they primarily provide access to stations already worked on the high bands.
The bigger low-band antennas in some way are a disadvantage, because the one-Q per station
rule means they are more often working just the closer stations they couldn’t get on
the high bands, just like stations with smaller low-band antennas (low inverted vees, etc.).
A way to solve Sunday doldrums without costing SS its democratization would be
perfect.
I think splitting it by time solves the doldrums plus gives equal advantage to
small and big stations.
73, kelly, ve4xt
--
Scott K9MA
k9ma@sdellington.us
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