[CQ-Contest] Contest Conflict

[Tom Frenaye]

At 01:03 PM 1/7/2004, Jamie Dupree/NS3T wrote:
>The observation of Jim, K1PX is a good one - that the Jan VHF & CQ 160 contests
>do conflict this year...and can we avoid such a contest double in the future.
>
>The big change is that the NFL has moved the Super Bowl back one week, to the
>first Sunday in February, from the final Sunday in January.
>
>The Jan VHF contest has been scheduled for the week before the Super Bowl
>(usually an off week in the NFL playoffs) - helping to avoid TVI, etc.
>
>This year's Super Bowl is on Feburary 1st.   In 2005, the Super Bowl is on
>February 6th, again placing the Jan VHF and CQ 160 on the same weekends.
>The story is the same in 2006 (Feb 5 Super Bowl) and 2007 (Feb 4th game.)
>
>So unless something is changed, it would seem that this contest conflict -
>albeit on very different ham radio frequencies - will continue for a few
>more years.

That seems like a good reason to make it the 3rd weekend in January (and avoid the CQ 160 CW contest on the 4th weekend).  

I did some checking of last year's CQ 160 CW results and the ARRL VHF SS results , which were on different weekends.
There were only 56 W/VE callsigns that showed up in both reports.  That's about 10% of the 585 W/VE participants in the CQ 160CW contest and 6% of the 1008 VHF SS participants.    

An even closer look shows less than a dozen scores from any of the 56 appear to be serious entries - most were casual participants (they averaged 106 QSOs in the VHFSS and 250 in the 160 CW contests).  That probably means that having them on the same weekend doesn't effect all that many people.   

The real reason for the VHF SS avoiding the Super Bowl had to do with TVI issues.  Somehow 6m kilowatts always came out on Super Bowl weekend - and that wasn't always fun for everyone.

The possible change was already on the agenda and being considered.

                        -- Tom


=====
e-mail: k1ki at arrl.org   ARRL New England Division Director  http://www.arrl.org/
Tom Frenaye, K1KI, P O Box J, West Suffield CT 06093 Phone: 860-668-5444