Why are there "too many" categories now? It's not like participants
are segregated on the playing field ... we all send the same reports and
work the same frequencies in an almost totally transparent manner.
Nobody can tell which category we are in until after the contest, so
please explain the downside of having lots of categories. We don't get
money for placing high, and I'll bet most of us don't even care about
certificates. Contesting is purely a hobby and all we care about is
competing on a reasonably equitable level.
The ONLY downside I can see to having additional categories would be
whatever amount of extra work it caused the sponsors. Other than that,
I don't see how anyone gets much of a feeling of accomplishment for
beating competitors that didn't even play the whole game. Certainly the
48 hour guys should feel great about beating other 48 hour guys, but the
overwhelming percentage of the players they beat didn't even really
compete with them. It's not even an endurance contest if it doesn't
apply to more than 90% of the entrants.
So what's the downside to additional categories if they represent a
significant percentage of the participants? Please be specific.
Dave AB7E
On 3/31/2013 7:34 PM, somata90924@mypacks.net wrote:
Just how many catagories do we want? There are too many now. Lets make it a
Low Band /High band entry-- 160,80,40, (Lowband)....then let's make that
assisted, non assisted, then lets make that LP/HP, then lets make that rookie
or non rookie, now do they use a beverage or not?.... Non Beverage or no
beverage,,,JUST how many catagories does one need?
Joe, w6vnr
-----Original Message-----
From: David Gilbert <xdavid@cis-broadband.com>
Sent: Mar 31, 2013 2:18 PM
To: cq-contest@contesting.com
Subject: Re: [CQ-Contest] How many hours do SOAB entrants actually operate?
Why would all the 24 hour guys work the first 24 hours of the contest?
That doesn't make any sense at all. Much more likely is that they
would try to pick hours that optimized propagation for contacts and
multipliers, and that would be different for every operator because of
different QTHs ... especially when you take into account different band
preferences.
It seems to me that a 24 hour category would essentially replace
potentially unhealthy (fatigue, circulation, cycle disruption, etc)
butt-in-the-chair boredom with additional degrees of freedom from a
strategy point of view. Particpants would have to choose their hours
carefully to maximize rate and multipliers taking into account both
propagation and prime time hours on the other end (which don't
necessarily overlap depending upon the band). They'd have the
opportunity to tailor their hours to wring the most out of the
capabilities of their antennas (not everyone has cannons on every band),
and they'd have the opportunity to work in sleep periods that would
allow them to chase key multipliers during hours they might normally not
operate.
It seems to me that a 48 hour contest where fully 90% of the
participants operate less than half that time is not really a 48 hour
contest anyway. In any case, for the great majority it isn't a test of
skill ... it's a test of endurance. Those are two radically different
things. Adding a 24 hour category would simply recognize that fact, and
it would only be necessary to add it for SOAB and SOAB(A) since almost
by definition the single-band and multi-op entries don't really need it.
Based upon the data I could easily foresee that the 24 hour categories
would become the most popular by far .... so how does that become a bad
idea??
73,
Dave AB7E
On 3/30/2013 6:35 PM, Tom Osborne wrote:
But, what if all the 24 hour guys operate the first 24 and then quit? That
would make for a boring weekend for the 48 hour guys. 73
Tom W7WHY
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