[CQ-Contest] The Great 30 hour WPX Debate

[Robert Shohet]

Well I guess I forgot the first rule of reflector
posting.  For every post there are people ready to shoot
at you because of things that have nothing to do with
actual experience in the matter at hand.  So be it.

Having said that, it's good to debate this stuff and get it
"all out there".  Maybe some good will come of it.  One
can hope.

To my good friend to the North, KL7RA, Rich it is always
a pleasure to hear from you.  Given your aurora experience
I am surprised you would not want a 10 hour contest
with a scoring handicap.  But if you did, you wouldn't
have the stones to contest from Alaska!  :-)

You reference WPXCW, which here in New England
has radically difference and poorer propagation than
WPX SSB.  I can recall my share of WPXCW contests
which had such bad propagation replete with K indexes
of 8 and 9, that I couldn't even hear EU on 20!  I can't
possibly imagine how much worse that would be in KL7.

But fortunately most of us are not faced with such adverse
propagation and would prefer to operate more, not less.

I don't agree with your characterization that my preferences
for this contest have been selfish, actually my "record" shows
quite the opposite since I personally lobbied N8BJQ to
add 1 point US q's for the benefit of all, as well as lobbying
for 36 hours to remove the cavernous dead time and increase
activity, all of which were highly successful rule changes.
Why?  Because it made the contest better.  The explosion in
activity is proof beyond a doubt.

While I have not been in Dayton for 10 years and do not hear
the chatter in the halls (but I am considering a remote operation
to remedy that)  :-), I can tell you that I am flattered that some would
think I "own" the contest.  But you are wrong when you imply that the
36 hours is a winning format for me.

I won when it was 30 hours.  I won when it was 36 hours.  I would have won
if it was 28, 38, or 46 hours. There was even the year when I started at
1430z and operated the last 33 1/2 hours of the contest straight through and
still beat everyone else in the Northeast.  The reasons I won were simple, I
adapted my strategy to the time allotted, the time of the cycle, the point
and mult ratios and constantly made decisions on the fly how to maximize my
score.  Although some New England stations boast of simply pushing F1, that
style of operating is alien to me.  With the wealth of stations to work and
the mults, even in the lean years there are so many operating choices to
think about.  This is the one contest where I would  use three radios if I
could have figure out how to do it.

In about half the years that I won, I beat great ops using a BETTER station
than mine with similar or better propagation in Eastern Mass/NH, FL, etc.  I
simply out-operated them.  I have also won this contest from FIVE different
states while operating from 1, 2 and 3 land.  In fact while I operated from
3 land, I beat the New England stations!  Do I operate any differently if my
competition is in Texas, Fla or Mass?  Absolutely not.  Since you never
watched me operate you would not be aware of "all the little things" that I
know about propagation and strategy in this contest, better than anyone
else, that I do each year.  But no matter.  If you wish to believe that I
won because 36 hours is a magic number and that all my proposed rule changes
are "selfish", then you really know nothing about me at all.  Having been
fortunate to win every major DX contest at least once including WAE, IARU,
160 and 10m and having won most more than once, I can tell you that I always
operate, EVERY MINUTE, to make the best possible score, regardless of the
rules.  That is the best that I can do and that anyone can do.  Anyone who
achieves that is a WINNER!, and it doesn't matter what place you finish in.

The best and toughest competition is with yourself, and operating to the
maximum ability of yourself and your station.  There is nothing harder to
live up to, than doing your best.  That is my goal.  How is it possible to
meaningfully compare to anyone else who has a different geographic location,
antennas, terrain, propagation, equipment, etc?  This is why I don't care
about what other ops are doing.  I don't compete with them, only myself.
Only twice have I operated what I consider to be the "perfect contest".
That's twice in 30+ years, and both times I did not win first place, but I
still remember the contest with a smile and pride that I will never forget,
and both of those times are at the absolute top of my list of operating
experiences.

Back to WPXSSB...  I love this contest more than any other.  I always have
and always will.  My enjoyment of it is why I have done so well, not the
other way around. I feel passionately about this contest the way others do
about SS or Sprint, to IARU (which is also a favorite of mine), and this
passion is why I just can sit around quietly and let people propose a rule
change that I know will hurt this contest for all of us.

I don't want to make what I believe are frivolous and poor quality rule
changes, because the fantastic level of activity speaks for itself.  In fact
is BECAUSE of the existing rules, not despite them, that the activity level
has grown so much.  If it ain't broke, don't fix it.  The activity level
speaks for itself.

You can choose to believe that my desire to keep the operating time to 36
hours is "selfish", but that would be wrong.  My desire is to keep a great
contest GREAT and not to "tinker" with what is working so well.  Some of the
ops who want to change to 30 hours, are the same guys who have never made a
serious effort in this contest, yet speak with the conviction  that 30 hours
is "better".  They will be the same people that if 30 hours became the old
rule, again, they would find a reason to not do 30 hours then either.  Same
as before when it was 30 hours.  Only it won't matter to them, since they
won't be operating full time and frankly don't really care about this
contest anyway.  But it will matter to me and many others who truly enjoy
the ability to work people for six hours more, and with a lot less dead
time.  WPX SSB is the best combination of DX and stateside contests with the
best propagation of the year, and with the wonderful opportunity for "little
guys" to be mults and have lots of space to run and feel loud.  It is the
contest that really "turned me on" to radio contesting back in 1975, 33
years ago this coming weekend.

Keep eating those greasy cheeseburgers my friend. It is always good to hear
"Radio Alaska" and I will be looking for you this weekend!

73
Bob KQ2M
kq2m at earthlink.net