[CQ-Contest] Unintended Consequences

[KL7RA]

The K5ZD super WPX website provides a lot of good data. 

On the 30 vs. 36 hour change the polling shows half want the rule to 
stay as is and half want it to change to something else so we can 
assume this issue is now mute.

In any case N2IC wasn't suggesting a revisit of that rule, just that 
changing rules can cause unintended consequences.

Reading KQ2M's post I assume he might have seen this as another 
attack on the 36 hour rule and presents some facts not supported by
the K5ZD WPX web site. 

Bob writes: "In the following years, after the increase from  30 - 36 hour 
time liimit, activity EXPLODED!"

Actually it went down or stayed almost the same after the change. The
top ten box callsigns simply shifted away from the west coast. 

Bob writes: "Likewise, one only needs to look at the exploding activity in 
this contest from Europe and other areas in the world, as well logs 
submitted, to see what a world-wide success WPX has become!
(In large part thanks to the 36 hours operating limit).

Actually the activity explosion is recent and just started an upward climb 
in the last five years, 16 years after the rule change. 

I was not able to follow Bob's logic of why 36 hours has more activity but
I did notice most entries do not use the full 36 hours anyway and just read 
DL8MBS's post which points this out as well.

The rule is what it is and for those like me that strongly disagreed with the
change when it happened, I just stopped operating WPX as SOAB. Lots
of contests to chose from.    

73 Rich KL7RA