[CQ-Contest] Be Careful of Getting What You Ask For

[Jimk8mr at aol.com]

Before getting too committed to quarterly Sprints, consider this:

When would you hold them, and with what would they conflict?

Taking the midpoints beween the existing dates would put them in late June 
and late November.  In June there are a few possiblities, but I don't think 
November can take any more contests!  And consider conflicts with existing 
contests.  There might be some unhappy people if a Sprint was scheduled on the last 
full weekend of April.

Since nearly all contest dates are based on an Nth weekend of the month, very 
few contests get scheduled on those weekends that split two months.  The CW 
Sprint this time took advantage of this quirk, although had it been announced 
much sooner people would have been happier.   So why not schedule a "bonus" 
sprint in those months when Saturday is the last day of the month?  

A second suggestion, partly tongue in cheek, but not entirely:  Especially 
for phone sprints, where a big consideration is disruption to normal users of 
the band, why not schedule them on Sunday evening, immediately after CQWW SSB, 
ARRL DX SSB, and/or WPX SSB?   

The bands will have been cleared out by the preceeding 48 hours of 
contesting, and, at least for the next 4 years, those of us not in New England will be 
looking for something exciting on those weekends.  Perhaps these Sprints could 
be even shorter ones, two or three hours, to better accomodate the 
get-some-sleep-before-work-on-Monday crowd.


73   -   Jim   K8MR