[CQ-Contest] Operation times in WWDX

[DL8MBS]

Hello,
the open logs of CQ WWDX will allow for a lot of analyzes of all kind. 
Of course also for looking at the operation time of participants. Until 
now such figures have been available only for the Russian DX Contest. 
I´ve posted some findings about the invested op-time for 2005, 2006 and 
2007

http://lists.contesting.com/archives//html/CQ-Contest/2006-03/msg00110.html
http://lists.contesting.com/_cq-contest/2006-07/msg00290.html
http://lists.contesting.com/archives//html/CQ-Contest/2007-05/msg00135.html

RDXC is a 24 h contest with an everyone can work everyone format but 
higher points for UA-contacts plus UA-multipliers. With WWDX we have now 
a 48-hour-marathon contest with no specific scoring for a main country. 
For analyzing the invested op-time I used figures derived by a software 
from Michael, DL6MHW. Many thanks! It defines off-time as any period 
longer than 10 minutes without qso.

I looked only at Single Operators in allband categories because most 
single band categories have a time limit by themselves. From the 
available logs the software could calculate the operation times for 2486 
logsending participants (logs sorted by band, with single qsos out of 
chronological order or in complete reverse chronological order can´t be 
computed yet correctly). This number is more than twice of the 
RDXC-figures and should allow for some insights:

The average operation time among those 2486 stations was 11,3 hours.

I found 35 stations operating longer than 40 hours representing 1,4% of 
log submitting SOAB. 130 stations (5,2%) operated longer than 30 hours

90,47 percent operated less than 24 hours halftime and 80,5% operated 
less than 18 hours.

Grouped by 6-hour-periods activity looks such:

42-48     0,97%
36-42     1,77%
30-36     2,49%
24-30     4,30%
18-24     9,94%
12-18    17,50%
6-12     28,24%
0-6      34,79%

The hourwise distribution can be found at 
http://www.dl8mbs.de/40984/45289.html

What really stunned me is that the average operation time in this 
48-hour-event is only a tiny bit above the average in the 24-hour-RDXC 
with a range of  9,7 to 10,8 hours during the last three years (not 
having good condx).  For the group operating up to12 hours the 
percentage is even identic with nearly two thirds.

In a followup I will compare the activity of W/VE vs Europe with its 
greater incentive to operate during the nighttime on the low bands even 
with medium and small setups.

Regarding the discussions about  possible 
"half-marathon"-distances/categories as a "Contest within the contest" 
there was a permanent fear that such attempts could reduce the operation 
time of those presently operating longer than halftime. At  least it is 
a surprisingly small group when already now 90 percent didn´t even reach 
the halftime mark.

Maybe the figures for the CW-leg will be different. In RDXC 
CW-participants operated significantly longer than SSB-ops (22,2 percent 
of the CW-stations operated longer than 16 hours, but only 15,5 percent 
of SSB-ops did).

Thanks again to DL6MHW and best 73, Chris

(www.dl8mbs.de)