About the fear of possibly shrinking activity with shorter time-based
categories: Already now without them the majority of log-submitting
participants operate less than half-time (i.e. 90 rpt 90 percent in a recent
WWDX-SSB or two-thirds in the 24-hour RDXC). So the majority of this
activity cannot be reduced by "halftime-categories". How about that: the
majority has not the time-budget or ability to operate marathon-distance and
the desire for marathon is more vocal than operational (in WWDX-SSB 2006
there were 35 SOAB-operators worldwide going longer than 40 hours...).
Shorter time-periods may bring shorter op-times only in the group operating
a bit longer than the threshold. On the other hand there will be (a bigger
number of) operators a few hours below the threshold then adding a few hours
to complete the "full-distance" or even being competetive in this category
(now it doesn´t make any measurable difference whether they help their club
with 10 or 12 hours - the difference being less than that of 10 minutes more
smoking-break or reconfiguration-time at one of the club´s
Multi-op-Stations).
A clever set threshold may minimize the loss of operation hours on one end
and maximize the gain on the other end. I suppose the compromise will be a
bit more than halftime. But at best organizers analyze the real operation
pattern over some years (i.e. the open logs of WWDX 2009 may reveal or not
differences to 2006 possibly due to better condx) to gain more insight. In
the meantime it would help the discussion in the contesting community and
every participant to add the individual operation times to the score lists -
without additional categories or awards but simply as a tool for better
comparison and insight.
Just the 2 eurocents of a usual suspect with this topic (see the operation
time pattern of five contests at http://www.dl8mbs.de/40984/45289.html )
Best 73, Chris
(www.dl8mbs.de)
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