Frankly, I would not favor such a dramatic departure from the
traditional
format of the Sweepstakes. While I can respect your desire to
participate
in the Sweepstakes from ZF2, I feel that the damage of turning the
last
remaining major contest for American hams that isn't a transatlantic
shootout into a transatlantic shootout would be fatal to contesting in
America.
The Sweepstakes has always been a contest that allowed stations with
smaller/lower antennas to compete on a somewhat even basis with
bigger stations. It rewarded operators with the skill of quickly and
accurately copying the exchange the critical edge. Bring in 1000
Europeans and Japanese stations who won't be sending in logs to
work the 10-20 loudest stations they hear and suddenly the ability
to copy an exchange is secondary to how loud your signal is in
Warsaw.
So under your proposed new rules smaller stations would suddenly
fall farther behind in the contest. With plenty of Europeans to work,
there will be less interest in contacting the 150W and QRP stations.
That means less and less fun for the new contesters who try out the
SS for the first time. The SS contest would lose its unique flavor.
And along the way we'd have lost part of the ability of the contesting
community to attract and encourage new members.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Bruce B. Sawyer" <zf2nt@candw.ky>
To: <cq-contest@contesting.com>
Sent: Thursday, October 10, 2002 4:30 PM
Subject: [CQ-Contest] November SS Sunday Afternoon
> While everybody is thinking about how to increase SS participation,
you
> might think about the idea of allowing non-US/VE stations to make
contacts.
> What would be the harm? Just as in NAQP, the contact could count
for point
> credit without "DX" stations being a multiplier. They/we would just
send
> "DX" for section and all the other information the same as everybody
else.
> I suspect there are lots of people outside US/VE who would be
interested in
> getting on and playing, and all that would happen would be that you
would
> see more activity. Nothing wrong with that, I say. Of course,
there are
> always going to be those who will throw out the usual objection of
> invalidating old records. But so what? Toss all the old records,
start
> from scratch, and you'll see even more activity. Or you can
continue
> sending unanswered CQs all afternoon.
>
> Bruce, ZF2NT
>
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