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

[David Gilbert]

Why would all the 24 hour guys work the first 24 hours of the contest?  
That doesn't make any sense at all.   Much more likely is that they 
would try to pick hours that optimized propagation for contacts and 
multipliers, and that would be different for every operator because of 
different QTHs ... especially when you take into account different band 
preferences.

It seems to me that a 24 hour category would essentially replace 
potentially unhealthy (fatigue, circulation, cycle disruption, etc) 
butt-in-the-chair boredom with additional degrees of freedom from a 
strategy point of view.  Particpants would have to choose their hours 
carefully to maximize rate and multipliers taking into account both 
propagation and prime time hours on the other end (which don't 
necessarily overlap depending upon the band).  They'd have the 
opportunity to tailor their hours to wring the most out of the 
capabilities of their antennas (not everyone has cannons on every band), 
and they'd have the opportunity to work in sleep periods that would 
allow them to chase key multipliers during hours they might normally not 
operate.

It seems to me that a 48 hour contest where fully 90% of the 
participants operate less than half that time is not really a 48 hour 
contest anyway.  In any case, for the great majority it isn't a test of 
skill ... it's a test of endurance.  Those are two radically different 
things.  Adding a 24 hour category would simply recognize that fact, and 
it would only be necessary to add it for SOAB and SOAB(A) since almost 
by definition the single-band and multi-op entries don't really need it.

Based upon the data I could easily foresee that the 24 hour categories 
would become the most popular by far .... so how does that become a bad 
idea??

73,
Dave   AB7E



On 3/30/2013 6:35 PM, Tom Osborne wrote:
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> But, what if all the 24 hour guys operate the first 24 and then quit?  That
> would make for a boring weekend for the 48 hour guys.  73
> Tom W7WHY
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