Maybe it aint broke

[pescatore_jt%ncsd.dnet at gte.com]

I weighed in early in favor of a 24 hour contest-within-a-contest, and I still
think it would lead to more contest QSOs being made than staying with the
status quo, but maybe we could end this by answering a simple question:

Is there a decline in the number of calls making QSOs in the contests?
Is there a decline in the total number of QSOs being made in the contests?

OK, it is two questions.

It seems like new records are being made in all categories, even during
contests where conditions are only so-so. It doesn't seem any easier to get a
good run freq on 40 cw. Is something broke? Do we really need more stationss
per contest? Seems like there's been some analysis by K5ZD that shows there are
a lot more calls to work in SS that the top three never got to.

There was some worry that no checks above 69 were being given out in SS, pins
and mugs seem to have taken care of that.

In DX contests,there is no end to the stations that you can work if you are
loud and fast. When the FCC gets off its collective butt and administers a call
sign program, K1AR will become N5EE and make 10,000 Qs by blinking and
twitching face muscles at his Pentium powered PC running the K1EA CT Version 9
retinal scan/morphing software. By then all the 92 year old G6s who send 599
NR1 in the ARRL will be dead and we will be working a lot of 2B3s or whatever
those funky calls are. And new records will be made and the bands will still be
crowded.

INSERT PROVOCATIVE STATEMENT HERE TO START NEW THREAD

After careful consideration, what we really need is a seperate category for
aging wimps with not enough time or energy, lumped together with rising,
energetic  young studs with time but only 100 watts and dipoles. Maybe we could
throw in the low-tech retro grouchs, the appliance operator packet pickers, the
10-10 twenty two dollars and thirty-three cents Waco wackos, and the CQers
before they didit dit'ers.

Not to mention the record the contest and log it laters.

I won't mention it.

John Pescatore
pescatore_jt at ncsd.gte.com