This is the kind of discussion I like to hear on here. Plenty of
ideas, often
conflicting ideas to be sure, but everyone has ideas.
Well, there are a lot of contests now; if we try creating another
couple of
NA Sprints per year there has to be an impact -- we won't simply be
able
to add the new contests without affecting the existing ones.
But, oh do I love the NA Sprints. Quite frankly, the format that
prevents
continuous runs is more exciting to me than you can imagine. The
Sprint
is much more interesting because of the QSY rule. I'd love to see
more
contests with the QSY rule.
But I have to be a bit pragmatic. The higher you go in frequency the
less
ability to adapt to the QSY rule. On 80 through 20 meters everyone
pretty much hears everyone else, but the higher in frequency you go
the
more likely it is that a tuning station will hear only one side of a
contact.
That makes 10 and 15 meters a bit less adapted to the format --
unless,
of course, there is incredible band crowding.
I could see some potential problems preventing fun in a VHF QSY-rule
contest if there is not enough band crowding. I'd guess that the VHF
guys would have less interest in a CW contest, however, and I see the
CW Sprint as having special allure to the contest faithful. I suppose
that some artificial "band opening" periods would make some sense in
a VHF Sprint. Like several 15 or 20 minute organized bursts on each
band spaced across a 4 hour contest period. Maybe multipliers
should be QSO's. That's right. 6 meter QSO's times 2 meter QSO's
times etc.
I might not find a VHF sprint interesting at all, except I'm really
quite
concerned that the HF bands will be hopelessly covered with BPL
crud in a few more months -- thus putting an end to amateur radio
as we know it. I'd hate to lose contesting completely.
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