Sprinters,
The CW Sprint is coming up on September 12, 2004.
Even though I have never done very well in the CW sprint, I think is is
a great contest worthy of promotion.
Activity in this contest has been growing over the years and in the
last 3 or 4 years we have seen some great activity increases in the
sprint. But I think we can all work to increase the activity in
the CW sprints.
Log submissions have been a bit above 200 for the last two CW sprints
and this is great but if you look at the results you will see there is
room for improvement.
Here are the log submission numbers by call area for the
last two sprints:
Feb 2004 Sep 2003
W1 15 14
W2 8 10
W3 15 6
W4 42 34
W5 32 36
W6 39 39
W7 20 15
W8 13 13
W9 13 15
W0 14 12
VE 11 11
(A good goal would be a minimum of 20 entries from each call area.)
Bill Fisher - W4AN had great success getting a lot of W4 stations on
in the sprint, he did this by getting folks to sign up to be on a
sprint team. Many other people also do this for each sprint but since
it happens behind the scenes it is not always obvious who those people
are. (I would like to thank everyone that organizes a team - but I am
not sure who you are.)
In looking at the above numbers you will notice some call areas are
under represented - based on activity in other contests and also when
compared to number the of contest clubs and contesters in some of
those call areas.
When you look at the results for your call area or state think of ways
that you and/or your contest club can get more people on for the next
sprint and then make it happen - get folks on the radio. I think that
getting them on a sprint team is the best way to get them to get on
the radio. Also I think it is clear that people on teams will put in
more time in the contest than if they are not on a team.
In the table above you will notice that in the September running of
the contest there were only six logs from W3 land. The third call
area has been putting in small numbers of logs for the sprint in the
last few years despite the fact that there are at least two large
contest clubs in the 3rd call area.
You will notice that log submissions doubled in the third call area
for the February 2004 contest - this was due to people forming several
teams in that call area.
In the last several sprints I have had good success forming a few
teams from the 5th call area. I found team members by looking through
the NAQP and SS results for people that sent in logs and I sent them
emails inviting them to be on a sprint. I also looked at the bottom of
the sprint results for the lower scoring stations and asked them to
join teams as well. I looked at my CW SS logs and sent emails to
everyone I worked in the 5th (and this year the 3rd) call areas. As a
result I got several sprint novices each time that I think will keep
coming back.
It is my hope the above will give you some ideas on how to find and
get new sprinters on the air - go after the long time contesters and
also get people that have never done a sprint.
I think it should be easy to get at least 20 entries from every
call area - in many call areas that would only mean getting 5 or 6 more
stations on for the next sprint.
If you operate the sprint - work on getting one of
your friends on for the next one.
I have an invitation email I send out - it has quite links to sprint
resources on it since I often send email to people that have never
heard of the sprint.
Here are those links:
If you have never tried the sprint you can find more
information about it at these URLs:
CW Sprinting - Beginners Guide - by W4AN
http://www.contesting.com/articles/198
The Sprint Survival Web Page
"The Sprint - the most fun you can have in 4 hours with your clothes on." - N6TR
http://n6tr.jzap.com/sprint.html
If you would like to have some sprint QSOs to use for CW practice:
http://www.kkn.net/~k5tr/audio/sprint_practice/
The rules are here:
http://www.ncjweb.com/sprintrules.php
Past scores are here:
http://www.ncjweb.com/sprintresults.php
Please go look at the sprint results and think about
ways you can get long time contesters and newbies on
in the next sprint.
--
George Fremin III - K5TR
geoiii@kkn.net
http://www.kkn.net/~k5tr
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