Sweeps SSB is not immune from declines, but they're not as significant.
You can always "walk" somebody through an exchange on SSB.
73 Rich NN3W
On Mon, Nov 17, 2025 at 2:22 PM John Geiger via CQ-Contest <
cq-contest@contesting.com> wrote:
> You are right about the contest differences between CW and SSB. I got on
> around 11:30pm local (0530Z) on Saturday night and was getting serial
> numbers in the 900s on phone. That would be unheard of at that point in
> the contest for the CW SS
>
> 73 John AF5CC
>
>
>
>
> Sent with Proton Mail secure email.
>
> On Monday, November 17th, 2025 at 10:53 AM, RT Clay via CQ-Contest <
> cq-contest@contesting.com> wrote:
>
> > The "level the playing field" always meant between stations in your
> area. In the east or midwest you can do pretty well with just 40/80
> dipoles, since nobody there can run productively on the high bands because
> of the skip zone. In some years even 40 goes long. In the west, you can do
> pretty well with just a tribander. When was the last time a station east of
> the Mississippi (and not in KP4 or KP2) won CW SS high power? If you really
> want to level the playing field east vs west, hold the contest in alternate
> years in June and November.
> > In general, I think suggestions for how to "fix" CW SS should not be
> based on the SSB SS. The SSB contest is really very different. I got on for
> an hour yesterday to run some stations. I was surprised that I worked very
> few high qso number stations, and lots of very low number stations. It was
> obvious that the big scorers still had plenty of new stations to work. In
> CW SS now everyone works most of the participants in about 1/3 of the
> contest time.
> > Tor N4OGW
> > On Monday, November 17, 2025 at 06:58:30 AM CST, john@kk9a.com wrote:
> >
> >
> > In the November Sweepstakes contest there are areas in the US with much
> > higher activity. I have never seen a sweepstakes activity map but the
> > activity does seem to be in the Midwest and eastern portion of the us. If
> > you're inside this area most of your QSO's will be on 40-80m and if
> you're
> > outside the area your QSO's will be on 10-20m. It is much easier to
> > operate on the high bands, the low band are noisier, have more QRM and
> even
> > broadcast station interference plus a lot of casual operators with
> limited
> > antennas don't operate 40m and 80m. So does the one QSO per station
> really
> > level the playing field? I don't see any evidence of this. I just looked
> > at the score database for SS SSB and the following sections are in the
> top
> > 75 highest scores: AK, AZ, BC, CO, MAR, MT, ND, NM, NTX, NV, PAC, PR,
> SCV,
> > SD, STX, VI, WCF, WTX, WWA. I am not suggesting a rule change however the
> > one QSO per station does make for a long Sunday, especially in the CW leg
> > where stations struggle to make 15 QSO's /hour. ARRL does a great job of
> > listing scores by division so you can compete with stations in your
> general
> > area, more contest should do that.
> >
> > John KK9A
> >
> >
> >
> > Tim Duffy k3lr wrote:
> >
> > <snip> In conversation with Randy Thompson K5ZD, George makes the case
> that
> >
> > Sweepstakes remains the most egalitarian contest on the calendar-favoring
> > smart operators, not just big stations. He explains why the
> > one-QSO-per-station rule levels the field.
> >
> > 73
> > Tim K3LR
> >
> >
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