[CQ-Contest] ARRL November Sweepstakes THIS weekend

[Jim Brown]

Those who don't work SS don't understand it. Tor has it exactly right. 
CW and SSB are very different, primarily in that more of us CW regulars 
are aging out, and fewer to replace us on CW.

As to "level playing fields," it's all relative. In both ARRL and CQ DX 
contests, stations within about 500 miles of the Atlantic basin have a 
10:1 advantage over most of the rest of the world. Those even closer, 
have a 20:1 advantage. It all comes down to population density and 
distance to the multipliers.

In contests like WPX, where multipliers are more evenly distributed, 
it's only about 2:1, based on population density.

73, Jim K9YC

On 11/17/2025 6:50 AM, RT Clay via CQ-Contest wrote:
>   The "level the playing field" always meant between stations in your area. In the east or midwest you can do pretty well with just 40/80 dipoles, since nobody there can run productively on the high bands because of the skip zone. In some years even 40 goes long. In the west, you can do pretty well with just a tribander. When was the last time a station east of the Mississippi (and not in KP4 or KP2) won CW SS high power? If you really want to level the playing field east vs west, hold the contest in alternate years in June and November.
> In general, I think suggestions for how to "fix" CW SS should not be based on the SSB SS. The SSB contest is really very different. I got on for an hour yesterday to run some stations. I was surprised that I worked very few high qso number stations, and lots of very low number stations. It was obvious that the big scorers still had plenty of new stations to work. In CW SS now everyone works most of the participants in about 1/3 of the contest time.