[CQ-Contest] A 24-hour category? was: Re: How many hours do SOAB entrants actually operate?

[Ron Notarius W3WN]

Pete,
I suspect that you'd see an upswing in activity, and an upswing in logs turned in (both competitive and check logs) in most weekend/48 hour contests that would add a Single Op 24 hour time-limited category. 
It might not make a difference to many of the top-notch contesters who inhabit this forum, but as has been noted previously, there are a lot more contesters out there than members of this reflector. Further, I believe thatany hams who think they have 'no' reasonable chance to win their section or call zone would rethink if they had that reasonable chance handed to them, with a time-limited category. 
IIRC, most past proposals to add this to various contests have bogged down in the details... is it a continuous 24 hour period (and if so, when?) or 24 hours cumulative over the course of the contest? 
Offhand, I'd say 24 hours cumulative, which means that there's some strategies involved in deciding which bands to operate at what times to try and maximize one's score.
I think it would be a lot of fun to try it!
73, ron w3wn


On 03/29/13, Pete Smith N4ZR wrote:

What would be the effect on activity of a 24-hour category, I wonder. A 
survey a few years ago on CQ-Contest suggested that more people would 
put in more hours than would put in less, so the net effect would be 
favorable.

73, Pete N4ZR
Check out the Reverse Beacon Network at
http://reversebeacon.net,
blog at reversebeacon.blogspot.com.
For spots, please go to your favorite
ARC V6 or VE7CC DX cluster node.

On 3/28/2013 5:29 PM, Jimk8mr at aol.com wrote:
> I don't think there would be many.
> 
> Most of the 24 hour people are people like me who have a 24 hour station -
> good enough to have fun in the good hours, and to work the easy multipliers
> on the low bands, but not good enough to be competitive after about 30
> hours when dipoles at 60 feet don't do much on 40 and 80 meters, not to
> mention 160.
> 
> A good op at a big station who decides to compete in a 24-30 hour time
> limited category will always beat my decent station, spending the same amount
> to time on the air.
> 
> 
> 73 - Jim K8MR
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> In a message dated 3/27/2013 2:45:02 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time,
> wa5rtg at gmail.com writes:
>
> It would be interesting to know whether there is some maximum number of
> hours (for single operators only) that would cause many of those who play
> around for 20-30 hours to go all in.
>
> How many don't give it a full effort because they can't go 46 but would
> make the attempt to go 40, for example? I wouldn't recommend less than about
> 40 or 42 max but would think it might be a positive to have some required
> off time if the end result was more activity overall. Looks like only 3%
> (less than 150 out of 5,000) operate even as many as 36 hours.
>
> There are some who are passionate about the 48 hours but it can't be many.
>
> Stan, K5GO
>
>
> On Mar 25, 2013, at 2:53 PM, David Gilbert <xdavid at cis-broadband.com>
> wrote:
>
>> Great info, Doug.
>>
>> That's only the results from the people who submitted logs, right? I'd
> bet that the curve is skewed even more toward fewer hours for the people who
> did not submit a log, and I wonder how many of those would be more
> inclined to submit a log if categories existed for fewer hours. I suspect quite
> a few.
>> 73,
>> Dave AB7E
>>
>>
>> 
> _______________________________________________
> CQ-Contest mailing list
> CQ-Contest at contesting.com
> http://lists.contesting.com/mailman/listinfo/cq-contest
>

_______________________________________________
CQ-Contest mailing list
CQ-Contest at contesting.com
http://lists.contesting.com/mailman/listinfo/cq-contest