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

[W0MU Mike Fatchett]

I don't receive the NCJ so I have not read the article.  What I gather 
is that most people feel that the SSB part of the contest is ok but the 
CW part is not.  If most people feel that SSB fine the way it is, are 
people suggesting we make sweeping changes to fix the CW portion and 
then possibly breaking both?

The exchange is long.  It makes the contest different.  This is good.  
As stated by many we have plenty of rate contests where copying is not 
part of the contest.

I have heard of lots of ideas but none of them really address the issue 
which is getting more people involved on the CW side.  Their are plenty 
of people trying CW or are proficient enough at slower speeds.    Most 
of the ideas allow more contacts from the same participants on other 
bands or by using other callsigns.    The reason the radio/callsign 
rules were put in place as I understand it, that when the club 
competitions were fierce, I don't thing they are as much any more, 
people would use other calls and only work their club members.  I get 
that.  Good for them, but not good for the overall health of the 
contest.  I am sure people still do it, tough to catch.  SO2R changed 
much of contesting, tough to put it back in the black box.

Is the CW solution a simple as slowing down and encouraging new or less 
competent cw ops to want to call you or is the goal to run at 45wpm and 
work nobody and listen to endless CQ's?  Will slowing down even help?   
Maybe the ARRL needs to print some articles on encouraging people to try 
SS CW and explaining it better?

The last couple hours of SS can be pretty fun.  Many people get on just 
for that period.

Who are we fixing the contest for?  The top 50  or 100 that are the real 
competitors or are we making it fun and better for all?

What we could be doing is breaking down the classes and putting the SO2 
elite ops in one category and then trying to figure out how to put the 
rest in appropriate categories so we can do a better job at 
acknowledging them and creating competition with similar stations and 
skills.

NAQP is great for 12 hours.  How would it be for 24 hours.  I would 
suggest that it would get pretty slow on CW.  You can always milk SSB 
contacts on open bands.   Maybe the NAQP folks should give a 24 hour 
contest a try and see how it goes.  NAQP has been around a long time now 
if it was be so great, why has it never been tried?

Changing for the sake of change is not a good idea.   Is the contest 
really broke?  I don't think so.  Could it be improved?  Maybe. Could we 
make it worse? easily!  Making large changes would change what the 
contest is.  I don't think that is a good idea.


W0MU