[CQ-Contest] How many hours do SOAB entrants actually operate?

[Richard F DiDonna NN3W]

On 3/31/2013 10:55 PM, David Gilbert wrote:
>
> I'm not saying that a full 48 hour effort isn't fun and challenging 
> for some, but catering ONLY to the less than 1% who fall into that 
> category seems misdirected to me.  What I don't understand is why the 
> categories shouldn't be able accommodate both.  I used to do a lot of 
> semi-competitive cycling and many events had different categories for 
> different distances ... 25 miles, 50 miles, and 100 miles all at the 
> same time.  It seems to me we could rather easily do the same here.
>
> 73,
> Dave   AB7E
>
Because in cycling, the efforts of one cyclist don't necessarily impinge 
on the efforts on others.  By encouraging stations to operate only 24 
hours, you will have an effect on how the bands load and the 
availability of stations during certain periods.  I can guarantee you 
that if stations got to chose to chose a 24 hour operating period, most 
would chose to operate during daylight hours and would avoid marginal 
bands as you can't mess up in a 24 hour contest.  Look at the scores 
from this past weekend's CQWPX contest - SOAB stations completely 
minimized their efforts on 80 and 160 because the ratio of time versus 
QSOs does not justify being up that late.

I'll also stand in total agreement with other posters who note that 
creating a new "24 hour" category won't guarantee any victories for 
non-hard core stations.  It will instead mean that certain hard core 
stations who don't want to do 48 hours, will instead do 24 hours and 
will knock off the competition.

73 Rich NN3W