[CQ-Contest] NA February Sprint

[Pete Smith]

Bravo, Ted!  Succinctly stated, good data, asking the right questions.

I favor a test of moving the February Sprint an hour earlier, but keeping 
the bands as is.  Reasoning, chiefly, is that it's a minimal change and 
doesn't penalize guys without good 160M antennas, and doing it once (say, 
next year) should help to illuminate the cause of the much-more-profound 
bias in February.

73, Pete N4ZR

At 02:20 PM 2/10/2009, Ted Bryant wrote:
>On the 3830 reflector, Andy N2NT asked:
>
>"...Anyone for moving the Feb sprint an hour earlier or to 160m? Well, at
>least till the spots come back..."
>
>Interesting ideas, Andy.
>
>In the Northern California Contest Club's annual Sprint "Ladder"
>competition, there are three competitive categories. One is strictly for
>NCCC members but the other two divide the U.S. into two groups: stations
>East and West of the Mississippi River.  Apparently someone recognized that
>there must be some geographical/propagational bias that warranted these
>groupings. Also, the Ladder competition is held across 20/40/80 and 160
>meters. Applying the NCCC Ladder competition's categories to the claimed
>scores for the FEBRUARY Sprint CW for the last 5 years shows some
>interesting details.
>
># stations in top 20:   West of the Miss      East of the Miss
>   2005                         16                    4
>   2006                         17                    3
>   2007                         14                    6
>   2008                         13                    7
>   2009                         14                    6
>
># stations in top 10:   West of the Miss      East of the Miss
>   2005                          9                    1
>   2006                          9                    1
>   2007                          8                    2
>   2008                          6                    4
>   2009                          8                    2
>
># stations in top 5:    West of the Miss      East of the Miss
>   2005                          5                    0
>   2006                          5                    0
>   2007                          5                    0
>   2008                          5                    0
>   2009                          5                    0
>
>To no one's surprise, I'm sure, these statistics show a pretty clear
>advantage for stations West of the Mississippi River in the February CW
>Sprint.
>
>
>Let's look at the statistics for the last 5 SEPTEMBER CW Sprints:
>
># stations in top 20:    West of the Miss     East of the Miss
>   2004                          9                    11
>   2005                         14                     6
>   2006                          9                    11
>   2007                         10                    10
>   2008                          8                    12
>
># stations in top 10:    West of the Miss      East of the Miss
>   2004                          4                     6
>   2005                          8                     2
>   2006                          6                     4
>   2007                          4                     6
>   2008                          6                     4
>
># stations in top 5:     West of the Miss      East of the Miss
>   2004                          2                     3
>   2005                          4                     1
>   2006                          4                     1
>   2007                          3                     2
>   2008                          4                     1
>
>The September Sprint is much more equitable but it is still tough to break
>into the top 5 if you are East of the Mississippi.
>
>So, to follow up on Andy N2NT's question:
>- Should there be any changes made to the February Sprint?
>- Should the February Sprint start an hour earlier?
>- Should 160m be added? (or replace 20m?)
>   -or-
>- Should Sprint results simply be reported with different/additional
>categories? (sorry, Tree!)
>
>73, Ted W4NZ
>
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