[CQ-Contest] Why 160m in SS?

[Ed K1EP]

At 12/19/2005 07:47 PM, Dale Martin wrote:

>Why is there a 160m band category (?) in SS CW/SSB? 

I have asked that question for a number of years.  Then someone told me, wait til the bottom of the cycle, then you will see some 160 SS.  

>In looking over the 3830 band summary for 2005 SS CW, out of 423 submitted
>reports, there's only one station reporting making as many as 1 QSO on 160. 

I once searched the entire ARRL online database for all the available SS contests and found less than a handful of reported 160 contacts over all the years reported.  

This year, however, for SS Phone, I have to think that I was responsible for a number of the 160 QSOs.  How is that?  I operated SS this year from the multi-multi super station of K1RX.  I have always operated low power in the past (and won NE Div several times), but this year, Mark gave me the challenge of taking on high power.  Mark's station is not normally suited for an all band single op SO2R effort, so some rewiring and configuring is necessary.   As I was using two Icom Pro radios, each with two HF inputs, I decided to operate only four of the six available bands to make switching easier.  One radio had 40/15 and the other radio wsa 20/80.  I gave up 160 and 10 meters for this contest.  I figured 10M would be a waste of time in SS, since you only get points for working someone once and mults for working a section once.  Any 10M station could just as well be worked on 15M.  And I gave up 160M because, as I stated before, no one ever uses 160M in SS.  As it was getting down to 2100Z, I gave Mark a challenge back.  I said, I'll operate the four middle bands, why don't you do a 10M/160M single op effort?  (Normally, one of the five radio positions is 10M/160M)  As the contest wore on, Mark, in his part time effort, made 200 Qs on 10M and 160M, with many stations telling him he was the only signal on either band.  At times, I could see that he was having a run on 160M.  I have to think that his effort sparked a lot of 160M activity in SS this year.

>Why even bother to carry this band as a usable band in SS?  

It's available for you to use.  Whether you use it or not, is a strategic decision that you have to make in SS.