[CQ-Contest] NS Ladder, Dupes vs. No Dupes Test

[sabrams at nycap.rr.com]

I cannot dispute the statistical analysis, but numbers don't always tell the 
whole story.  This is my NY "take" just from my experience during the last 
two months or so--I'm a newbie at this and don't operate SO2R (unfortunately 
I couldn't get on for the "no dupes" test).  First and foremost, geography 
plays a big role.  Being really east of the Mississippi I find that unless 
there is really long skip on 20, like last week when I was loud in Calif and 
made 36 qsos, including alot of dupes, the west coast has a pipeline to the 
mid west and the mid west/south have a north/south pipeline to each other. 
Very few are pointing at the east coast.  So it is much easier for the loud 
stations to dupe each other at high speed than to listen for the weaker 
ones, especially if we go a little slower. This is even more pronounced on 
40 where stations are weaker still  (pointing west or north/south?)  and the 
loud stations close to each other just dupe over and over.  As for 80, I 
almost never hear anyone, although I read about some stations working each 
other over and over.  I guess its nice to have a strong local station also 
participating so you can dupe him every other qso, especially when SO2R. 
So, when signals are loud its nice to be able to dupe at higher speeds, but 
when signals are weak, it is harder to break the pile-ups.  The choice of 
dupe vs no dupe also raises a philosophical question--Is the skill-set only 
to run as fast as you can with the same loud signals over and over, or being 
able to pull weak signals out of the noise and getting a really high mult 
count?  In the no dupes case, the digger with good antennas has an advantage 
when the loud stations are worked out.  With dupes, rate is king.  Last week 
when we had long skip, the mid westerners commented that they couldn't hear 
much on either coast.  I heard some of the Texas area stations really weakly 
when when I beamed that way, but decided to dupe the loud W6's instead of 
spending alot of time with repeats. So that's the take of a really newbie 
without SO2R.  73 and see you around.  Saul K2XA