[CQ-Contest] NCJ Article RE: Sweepstakes Change Suggestions

[Ed]

I am a relative newbie to sweepstakes, but gosh....shouldn't we all agree to make whatever changes are possible to help the unfortunate souls that live on the east coast.  After all this is a contest where these disadvantaged stations cannot feast on unlimited European or African multipliers...on all bands. There must be something we can do to "level the playing field" here.

Maybe I am missing something here but does the east coast not enjoy working pretty much unlimited east coast stations once the sunsets or pretty much all day long on 40m? Once the sunsets on the east coast and they all move to 80 and 40m, the central and western stations  run out of stations to work  pretty quickly as the band goes long. Then when the central and western stations do decide to move to 40/80, finding a run frequency is extremely difficult or impossible, especially on SSB.

>From my perspective, SS is a contest where strategy is important. When to change bands, whether to call or run,  I really believe this is a contest where you can not park yourself on a single frequency for the duration of the contest and just call CQ.  If you think Sunday afternoon is slow, spin that big knob on the front of your rig and call some of the 3rd and 4th tier stations that have finally found a run frequency. Sunday is a great opportunity to practice your SO2R skills.

If changes are to be made, consider making each of the Atlantic provinces their own ARRL section. 
If they shorten the contest, I will never  get a sweep as it seems I can only find NE during the last couple of hours :)

As a third tier station, I compete against others in my division and my previous contests scores. I try to learn from my previous mistakes and I get on and have fun. If you have the attitude that "if I can't win, I won't play", well there is nothing we can do to change that. 

In every contest, it seems some group has an "advantage", real or perceived. In SS I want to believe it is the best operator that uses the best strategy with a reasonable station.

Just my $0.02 ($0.015 $USD)

Ed VE4EAR/VE4VT