Since operating in Sweepstakes for the first time a few years ago and
falling in love with this contest, I wondered - am I at a real disadvantage
given that my check is 00 or ten dahs on CW? Finally I decided to do a
simple estimate and it goes like this. Suppose my average sending speed is
32WPM (I typically start at 35 and end up at 29 by the end) and let's
disregard the fills. Sending 00 takes 41 dots (from here on dot is the
amount of time to send a dit, dah is 3 dots, space between letters is 3 dots
and so on). Sending 78 (average length check) takes 31 dots and sending 55
(shortest check) takes 21 dots. Using "PARIS" as a typical word for this
estimate I get that there are 42 dots in a word and 3 extra dots for space,
a total of 45 dots. Therefore in a minute there are 32 words or 32*45 = 1440
dots, or one dot is 1/1440 minutes long. This means that in every exchange I
lose (41-31)*(1/1440) = 1/144 minutes compared to a check 78 and twice that
to check 55. Having made about 1200 contacts in the last two sweepstakes
this means that I spent 1200/144=8.3 extra minutes on sending long check
compared to an average operator and 16.6 extra minutes compared to a lucky
one. This roughly translates to 7 or 14 QSOs less given the average rates. I
am well aware that life is not fair (I do contest from the Pacific
Northwest), but am I being robbed?
73, Denis - K7GK
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