[CQ-Contest] SSB Sprint - W4ANs View

[Gerry Hull]

Funny Story...

I've been pretty busy with life and not been on the air that much for
contests.
I was thinking of getting on for the CW Open.   Well, at the last minute I
did,
remotely from Vermont.  I opened a new log for the CW Open.  Not thinking,
I had my CW messages programmed for the Open (except I forgot to change
my CQ, which was CQ NA (the CQ for Sprint).   I called CQ and stations came
back --and I did not give my state.  They asked for it.  What the heck?
 Well, of course, I soon realized, it was 24 hours later, and this was
Sprint.  I was pretty confused.   I did change
my log, and was happy to give a bunch of guys a Vermont QSO.   However, if
it's
confusing to me (not normally so), I bet it is really confusing to new
contesters,
where the exchanges are very similar but the rules are very different.

I'd say that the lifeblood of any long-standing contest is the
participation of non-contesters or "casual"
contesters.  (We tend to focus on the top ten -- but we NEED all those
other QSOs!)
With a Sprint, the QSY rule is not obvious, and so this can be very
confusing to new people.
Especially on SSB, where you tend to have a bunch of casual participants.
 Also, non-contesters
are going to get pissed at the QRM due to the QSY rule.

Sprint is not casual. It's for the dedicated. Maybe should be CW only.

73, Gerry W1VE


On Tue, Sep 16, 2014 at 8:51 AM, Hal Kennedy <halken at comcast.net> wrote:

> I remembered Bill, W4AN, expressing his dislike for SSB Sprint on this
> reflector more than once.  Here is an excerpt from a February 2004 post,
> under the heading: "Bad Sprint Ideas:"
>
> #4:  Phone Sprint
>
> Dumb contest.  No, wait.  Dumbest contest.
>
> Maybe if it were moved to 15m/20m/40m, and earlier in the day.  Otherwise,
> too disruptive.  And, if a contester thinks a contest is too disruptive,
> what do you think the non-contesters think?
>
> I can give you recommendations for dumping this contest forever from at
> least 5 guys who have won it in the past and who won't operate it again.
>
>
> That was 10 years ago.  Bill of course was a mostly-CW guy.  I personally
> don't believe SSB Sprint should be dropped if people want it enough to
> participate.  At the moment people don't seem to want it enough to
> participate.  The CD parties were dropped.  There is no "Giant Rule-Book in
> the Sky"  that says once a contest is established it has to last forever.
> Is it time to pull the plug?
>
> As an aside, we now have the NCCC Sprints once a week.  Yes, they are CW
> (and RTTY).  We also have the weekly CW Ops Mini-tests, which while not
> following the Sprint rules precisely, feel a lot like a Sprint.  That makes
> two a week.  Maybe the community at large is in "Sprint-Overload" or has
> "Sprint-Burnout?"  Most of us, I think, have a hierarchical list (held
> mentally, if not formally written) of what we want to participate in.  As
> the weekly Sprints have come about - they are growing in my rank-ordering
> and forcing other contests below the clip line.  There is a clip line since
> my time for contesting is finite.  SSB Sprint is well below my clip line.
> I would be an eager participant if it were the year's only contest. Given
> the proliferation of contests (two sprints a week!) it is no longer of
> interest.
>
> 73, Hal
> N4GG
>
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