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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