[CQ-Contest] History of Low Power Category

[Tod Olson]

Al ‹ if you are someone who going to cheat, you probably are not reading
this reflector anyway. Whatever we write will have no effect on such folks.
I suspect they are in a parallel universe.

Tod, K0TO



On 9/17/14, 3:09 PM, "Alan Dewey via CQ-Contest" <cq-contest at contesting.com>
wrote:

> 
> I agree with the comment made earlier on this list (by N5DO I believe) that
> antennas make a much bigger difference than 50 watts of power.
>  
> I've never been that bothered by the 150W rule for ARRL contests.  If we are
> not upset by guys who have the space, money, and time to put up
> super antenna arrays to gain an edge, why are we so upset by guys who spend a
> little more and buy a 200 watt radio so that they can run it at 150W in
> an ARRL Contest and maybe get a slight edge over the 100W guys.  I don't get
> it.
>  
> Granted - 150W means 150W - not 200 like the radios are capable of.  And for
> contests that require 100W, the 200W radio guys must dial back to 100W or
> they are cheating.  This goes without saying.
> 
> I heard one explantion once about why ARRL keeps the 150W limited.  I don't
> necessarily agree with the following reasoning but can understand the
> rationale.
> It is known that many guys use 200W radios in the Low Power category.  The
> expection is that they dial them back to either 150 or 100 watts depending on
> the contest.
> However , if they run the full 200W (either purposely or unintentionally),
> they are gaining less of an advantage over the 150W guys than they are over
> the the 100W radio
> guys.  Said another way, they are cheating less in a 150W contest than they
> are on a 100W contest.  Again, this is no license to do this (i.e. run 200W)
> but perhaps acknowledges that
> some guys do it anyway.
> 
> 73,
> 
> Al, K0AD
>  
>  
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Edward Sawyer <SawyerEd at Earthlink.net>
> To: cq-contest <cq-contest at contesting.com>
> Sent: Wed, 17 Sep 2014 6:10
> Subject: Re: [CQ-Contest] History of Low Power Category
> 
> 
> As someone who has spent the past 10 years competitively low power
> contesting at 100 and 150W depending on the contest, I can tell you that it
> does make a difference.  I have routinely experimented in contests that I am
> not competing in or DXing.  Its that marginal time of the station saying
> "the N1 station?" and then sometimes the next time says "the W1?" and you
> think "oh no - he was getting it".  Right there, at that instant, I have
> found that about 1/3 of the time, the 1.7dB can complete the still marginal
> Q, pretty much immediately when its going to work.
> 
>  
> 
> So as I layout thousands of feet of radial wire for 160 even though the text
> book says that the last 50% of the work might only add 2dB, you know why you
> are doing it.  Or countless other projects that add 1db or 0.5dB at a time.
> 
>  
> 
> For the record, I have 2 x FT1000MP Mk Vs and one of the reasons was to have
> the 150W capability for the ARRL contests.
> 
>  
> 
> 73  
> 
>  
> 
> Ed  N1UR
> 
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>  
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