[CQ-Contest] W5WMU experiment in NAQP

[David Pruett]

All,

As the founder/originator/creator of the NAQP, I feel compelled to 
comment on this thread

The NAQP was the brainchild of myself and several other active 
contesters in the Contest Hospitality Suite at the ARRL National 
Convention in Lousville, KY in the fall of 1987 as a replacement for the 
ARRL Open CD Party contest which had been discontinued by the ARRL.  At 
the time, I was the editor of the NCJ, and the ARRL's role as publisher 
of the NCJ was just on the horizon.  Since the NCJ had successfully 
sponsored the Sprints for over a decade at that point, I saw sponsoring 
the NAQP as a natural extension of that type of role.

The CD Party rules, which was a single mode contest where dupes were 
counted by band was a good starting point.  However, CD parties were 30 
hour periods with ten hours off time and mults counted once overall.  
The short 4 hour operating period of the Sprint enjoyed considerable 
popularity, so the period was cut back to 10 hours out of 12 to keep the 
rate up and avoid running out of people to work.  Mults were counted by 
band to encourage band changing and strategy like a DX contest.  The 
final result was a domestic contest that played somewhat like a DX 
contest, but yet small to medium stations could be competitive enough to 
have a good time and you didn't need to be an iron man to compete full 
time..

The NAQPs were originally full power contests as were the CD Parties.  
High power helped guys with poor antennas on 160 make QSOs, but it was 
the high bands where the power helped initially.  The early NAQPs in 
1988/89 suffered from poor high band condx and high power helped many 
stations get mults on 10m and 15m by scatter.  Since then we've been 
through another sunspot minimum and we've seen that working hi-band 
mults on scatter is a lot more difficult with low power.

I think it was 1996 when Bill Fisher, W4AN first floated the idea of 
making the NAQPs low power contests.  There was never any discussion 
about "leveling the playing field".  The low power limit was advocated 
as a way to differentiate the NAQPs from other contests, and by shedding 
the outboard amplifiers band agility (to move multipliers) would be 
simplified and SO2R (which was just coming into its own around that 
time) would be easier for many stations.

As for the W5WMU experiment, I will offer a quote from another contester 
(who shall remain anonymous):

"You only have to follow the rules of the contest if you're gonna submit 
a log for a score"

73, Dave/K8CC

On 1/6/2016 7:43 PM, Art via CQ-Contest wrote:
> Just heard from Pat that he will be using high power to feed into 3 different stacks for NE, N, and NW during the NAQP Saturday. He'll be entering as a check log but wanted to see how the antennas would play from way down south.
>
>
> Ought to be interesting!
>
>
> See you Saturday.
>
>
> 73,
>
>
> Art KZ5D
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