[CQ-Contest] NA February Sprint

[Dean Wood]

Steve London wrote:
>Seems to me that the east coast contest
>clubs need to beat the bushes to increase activity,
>just like the NCCC has done on the west coast.


We in the NCCC were very pleased to field 35 operators on 4 teams in
last weekend's CW Sprint.  In addition to this, 5 other NCCC members,
who were not on a team, participated when they saw their schedules
open up at the last minute.  We believe it was our club's highest
number of CW Sprint participants in history.

In addition to the NS practice events that most on cq-contest are
familiar with, and posting links to all the great text and audio
content on the web to prepare for a CW Sprint, the NCCC hosted a
special CW Sprint web seminar for NCCC members in the week leading up
to the contest.  CW Sprint expert N6TV presented 1.5 hours of material
to about 20 NCCC members, from basic beginner content to advanced
operating techniques and software CW message setup, with supplementary
input during the webinar from Sprint experts N6RO and N6XI.

Yet, we envision the future opportunity for increased Sprint
participation, and spent some time at our NCCC meeting a few days ago
openly discussing what kept others from participating and what we can
do to address those items going forward.  We've also had a good
discussion about it on our club's e-mail reflector.

Our level of participation had nothing to do with a
"west-of-the-Mississippi-River-advantage in the overall Top 10 box for
the February Sprints."  I'm not very good at the CW Sprint, yet I have
participated in the last two runnings, and look forward to the next
one, because they are a lot of fun, they're just 4 hours, the format
is fresh apart from other contests, the CW Sprint involves really
intriguing challenges, and my club has motivated me to get active and
sign up on a team.

Speaking for myself, I think that there are a number of short-term and
long-term things that we can do as individuals, clubs, and geographic
regions, to substantially raise CW Sprint participation without
changing the rules.  How about we work together offline, pending
Tree's blessing, to share ideas and set them into action over the next
several months, with the September 2009 CW Sprint as our milestone
date?  Who's in?  Tweaking the rules to add 160m or delete 20m or
start the contest an hour earlier for the February Sprint, all does
not strike me as being influential to suddenly inspire significantly
more participation in the CW Sprint, big guns or little pistols, in
any region of North America.

73...
-Dean - N6DE