[CQ-Contest] re: SS observations ( kinda long)

[George Fremin III - K5TR]

On Mon, Nov 05, 2001 at 06:45:23AM -0800, Jeffrey Clarke wrote:
>   KI9A wrote :
> 
>   Well, I sit here Sunday night after another fun SSCW.  I can't help
> to ponder if (when?) the CAC may change the SS rules to help cure the
> Sunday doldrums.......
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
>  I totally agree with Chuck's comments. After spending last weekend
> running guys at 200 + and hour at PJ2Z I had practically no motivation

If you would like to run 200 hours this might be what you need:

http://plaza16.mbn.or.jp/~masiii/


> to go do Sweepstakes and maybe average 60 or so an hour. ( even less on
> Sunday) I was planning on maybe doing a SOLP but opted to just go to

The ARRL November Sweepstakes is a really cool contest. 

- The exchange is long and very diffrent.

- It is not CQ WW - it is not designed to be CQ WW or anything else.

- You can only work guys on one band - makes it possible 
  to do well from almost anywhere in the country. 
  (The high claimed scores for the high power catagory have 
   stations from all over the country in the top ten.)

  http://lists.contesting.com/_3830/200111/msg00335.html   
 
- There are folks who we work every year in SS.  Many of these
  guys do not do any ohter contests seriously but they get on
  in SS and do the whole thing and have a great time. 

- I like the SS, I like it just like it is, it is fun.

http://www.kkn.net/~k5tr/ssb-ss.html

- K5ZD really likes the SS too.

http://www.k5zd.com/scores/k5zd_sscw.htm

One thing you might notice is that the scores in this contest 
are higher now than they were in the early '80s. 
K5ZD scores:

Year	Station	  QSOs  Finish
---	-------   ----  ------
1980    K5TM	  1133   2nd 
1981	N5AU	  1246	1st
1982	N5AU	  1216   1st
1983	N5AU      1278   1st
1984	N5AU	  1187   1st

Since the top slots of past few years have been 
making about 1400+ QSOs I dont see how anyone could say 
the activity is declining.

Doing this contest well is hard work.  

I have done 24 hours of SSB SS and been more tired then I was after
doing 47 hours of the the CQ WW SSB contest a few weeks ago.

There are many skills that need to be mastered to do well in a contest
- one of them is how to keep the rate up when things slow down.  It is
very easy to stay fired up and focused when things are going good with
high rates.  But it takes something extra to squeeze every last QSO
out of a contest when things are slow and you are not sure what band
you should be on.  Going 100 and hour is easy, turning a 25 hour into
a 35 hour takes the skill of a real operator. It is slow hours that
separate the pups from the big dogs.

I love SS.

As Wayne W5XD said, 

"Go break someone else's contest, please."


-- 

George Fremin III                 
Johnson City, Texas             "Experiment trumps theory." 
K5TR (ex.WB5VZL)                            -- Dave Leeson W6NL
geoiii at kkn.net                             
830-868-2510                      
http://www.kkn.net/~k5tr                   


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