[CQ-Contest] SS Sundays

[RT Clay]

--- On Wed, 2/6/13, ko7ss at yahoo.com <ko7ss at yahoo.com> wrote:

> From: ko7ss at yahoo.com <ko7ss at yahoo.com>
> Subject: [CQ-Contest] SS Sundays
> To: "cq-contest at contesting.com" <cq-contest at contesting.com>
> Date: Wednesday, February 6, 2013, 10:03 AM
> Since the SS Sunday doldrums is again
> being talked about (!) just a thought: Why does SS have to
> start late
> Saturday afternoon and end late Sunday evening? The pool of
> casual entrants that would get on after 8 PM
> on a Sunday worknight/schoolnight has to be very small.
> Based on the check years being sent, many of you
> are retired and don't have to get up at 0600 on Monday
> morning to go to work. But I suspect the younger
> casual contesters with family and job don't have Sunday
> evenings available......

Not entirely correct, I think you don't have small children!  If you have small kids and haven't planned ahead for a contest, after the kids go to bed is the ONLY time available for casual contest participation.

Another thing is that daylight hours favor the west coast stations who can run on the high bands. Having some more night hours at least gives midwest/east some chance to make qsos on 80.

Still, shortening SS from 30 hours would be the simplest way to make it go faster on Sunday without drastic changes to the rules. Hasn't the length been shortened before already?

Tor
N4OGW