[CQ-Contest] Sprint Mults

[Kenneth E. Harker]

     This past weekend, I operated in the phone sprint for the second time.
I love the pace of the contest, and I think I improved my results from 
February.  

     Being a nearly-complete neophyte to this contest, I am totally 
befuddled by multipliers.  I understand the point of multipliers in 
the ARRL DX, the NAQP, CQWW, etc.  By having multipliers figure into the 
scoring system of those contests, operators have to devise a strategy that 
might sacrifice overall QSO total to go after multipliers.  This is 
often leaving a run frequency to go search and pounce, choosing to be 
on a band that has low rate but you need to be there for a band opening 
you can't get later on, etc.  It makes the contest more fun/difficult.  
In other (rate) contests, like the Sweepstakes and WPX, multipliers are 
essentially irrelevant.  Either everyone (in the top competitive levels) 
gets essentially all the multipliers or the multipliers are pretty closely 
tied to the number of QSOs made anyway, and in either case doing anything 
other than maximizing your QSO total is a bad decision.
       
     In the NCJ North American Sprint, we have multipliers.  Nobody
gets them all, and in fact there can be a huge spread among the Top Ten.
Some Top Ten stations can work as many as 20% more multipliers than other
Top Ten stations, and the difference in the resulting score can be huge.
A 55 multiplier versus a 45 multiplier is a really, really big difference.
Multiplier totals are only a vague function of QSO totals.  In the just 
finished phone sprint, AG9A has a claimed score with 69 (23%) more QSOs 
than K4XS, but K4XS claims two more multipliers!  W5TM has a claimed QSO 
total of just four fewer QSOs than K4XS, but ten fewer multipliers.
These differences in the top scores seem to be more dramatic than I see 
in other contests.

     Probably because I am just a neophyte at this contest, I cannot see
how one would behave, strategically, to maximize multiplier totals in this
contest.  Aside from maybe choosing to be on certain bands at certain 
times in the four hour contest period, isn't everything else just a 
crap-shoot?  Does anyone S&P specifically for new multipliers calling CQ?  
Is there some two-radio technique that helps?  I'm pretty sure I worked 
every multiplier I heard on in the contest; I got beaten out a few times, 
but I did eventually work them.
     
     I'd love to hear any theories/philosophies about how one makes a 
good multiplier total in the NA Sprints.

-- 
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Kenneth E. Harker      "Vox Clamantis in Deserto"      kharker at cs.utexas.edu
University of Texas at Austin                   Amateur Radio Callsign: WM5R
Department of the Computer Sciences          Central Texas DX & Contest Club
Taylor Hall TAY 2.124                         Maintainer of Linux on Laptops
Austin, TX 78712-1188 USA            http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/kharker/
----------------------------------------------------------------------------