[NCC] Thoughts on January NAQP CW Strategy (long)

Fri Jan 10 20:20:45 EST 2014

Thanks to Hal for a lot of good suggestions. Especially Hal's advice  about 
off times. It is difficult to take off time two hours into a contest,  but 
sometimes that is the best thing in an NAQP.

A couple of small additions:

1. There is some interesting solar activity going on. Not sure how that  
might affect things, but if there is aurora, try pointing those beams north on 
 10 and 15. That works in VHF; not sure how many guys know about that for 
HF. It  can be a way to work other northerly close in mults.

2.  I've not done super serious NAQP efforts, but some guys seem to  have 
some small success finding NA DX stations who are not in the contest,  and 
getting a generic QSO including their name. If things get slow give it a  
thought.

3.  If we have lots of club activity, with nearby stations, working  each 
other on six bands will add to scores for both.  "QRB" is the MRRC  term - Q 
"Run the Bands". Again not the sort of thing for when somebody is  working 
150/hr, but for the slower times - QRB?

Hope to work lots of you tomorrow!

73  -  Jim   K8MR

In a message dated 1/10/2014 7:21:07 P.M. Eastern Standard Time,  
hal at japancorporateresearch.com writes:

Thoughts  on January NAQP CW Strategy  (long)

Suggestions

1.     Review  your previous results before the contest

2.     Set a  goal for this contest 

3.     Take your off-times before  0000Z

4.      Don't spend too much time "DX-ing" on 10  Meters

5.      80 meters is our "money band" followed by  40

6.      You should have a lot more mults on 160 than  10

7.      Move multipliers, especially if you are SO2R  

8.      NAQP is a great contest for  SO2R

9.      OH and MI are ripe for new  records

I've been looking at the past results for the January  CW NAQP and thinking 
about my own strategy.  Here is some hopefully  interesting data on the 
January session and a few thoughts on how to maximize  your score in the 
contest this Saturday.  There are many more qualified  to expound on this subject, 
but since they have not stepped forward, I will do  so.  I hope those with 
other suggestions or different views will provide  input.  Most of the above 
are pretty self evident I think, so I would  like to concentrate on 
off-time strategy.

As we all know, radio  conditions in January are quite different from 
August, and this difference  shows up big time in the results.  Scores in January 
tend to be a lot  higher than in August.  In January 2013, the top two 
stations had well  over 1400 QSOs and an average of 278 multipliers compared 
with 1100 QSOs and  227 multipliers for the top two in August.  The good 
conditions in  January boost scores from every part of the country, but they seem 
to boost  them more for stations in the southwest and west.  In August, half 
of the  top ten stations were from east of the Mississippi, but in January 
only two  (AA3B and N9CK) made it into the top ten.  This will make it 
harder for  our teams to get into the top ten but our individual scores should 
still be  much higher than in August, meaning more contacts and more  fun.

Overall, there two major differences.  First, the 10  meter band is a lot 
better than it is in August.  Unfortunately, for  those of us in NCC/MRRC 
territory, this is not really good news.  Yes, we  will find more stations and 
mults to work there, and this is fun, but it is  the stations in the western 
US who benefit most from this.  They will be  running up big totals while 
we sit in their pileups trying to put them in the  log.  We are the fish in 
their barrel.    

Second, with more darkness, 80 and 160 are of course a lot  better in 
January.  This is a big plus for us.  We will be able to  run and run and run, 
and it will be those guys out west who will be the fish  in our barrel.  

It is these two differences that point to  the best off-time strategy for 
us in this part of the country.   

As you will recall, the NAQP is a 12 hour contest in which you  are able to 
operate a maximum of 10 hours.  This means that you must take  at least two 
hours off with each off-time at least 30 minutes long.   

When to take your off-times is the main strategic decision you  have to 
make.  While you need to catch as many of those 10 meter and 15  meter mults as 
possible, keep in mind that you are almost guaranteed to  achieve higher 
rates on the low bands than you can on the high bands.  To  some degree, 
strategy depends on the strengths and weaknesses of your  particular station.  If 
you have a well-performing high-band antenna and  you are able to maintain 
good rates, by all means stay on 10 and 15 as long as  you can.  But if your 
rates are much below 60=70/hour, you may be hurting  yourself because you 
can probably do better on the low bands later on.   So I believe the best 
strategy is to sweep 10 and 15 often to pick up  multipliers but to keep an eye 
on the rate meter and remember that you want to  take your off-times when 
your rates are low, not when they are high.   This means before 0000Z.        

Here's what I do when I'm serious about a any contest, not  just the NAQP.  
I go through my logs from past years and make a table of  my hourly rates, 
off-times and the bands I used each hour.  I try to see  what I did right 
and what I did wrong.  Usually this is pretty  obvious.  I keep this data next 
to me while I'm operating and I try to  beat my previous Q totals each hour 
and to not repeat my mistakes from  previous years.    

A review of my own logs from past  January NAQPs shows that my rates on the 
high bands are sometimes half what I  achieve later on the low bands.  
Typically during the first couple of  hours I will average between 50-70 per 
hour, while my rates after 0000Z are  often over 100.  Some years I have taken 
the last hour or the last 30  minutes as off times.  This usually has turned 
out to be a big mistake  that cost me 40-50 or more contacts.  This year 
one of my main goals is  to make myself take all of my off-times prior to 
0000Z so that I can take full  advantage of 40, 80 and 160.

The band breakdowns figures of  N9CK, who is the closest station to most of 
us to make the top ten in January  2013, are very instructive:

160        140/41

80     396/56

40           304/53

20          199/46

15   106/27

10           69/16

Total  1,214 QSOs 239 multipliers final score  290,146

Steve's best band by a wide margin was 80 meters,  followed by 40.  He had 
twice as many contacts and nearly 3 times as many  multipliers on 160 as he 
had on 10.  He is in Madison, WI so his  propagation is somewhat different 
from ours, but I think that his band  breakdowns are probably pretty close to 
what ours should be if we are to  maximize our scores.  You could argue 
that we ought to have better totals  on 160 considering our more central 
location.

For some reason,  scores from W8 to date seem to be well below those for 
other areas.  Many  stations in other call areas have produced QSO totals over 
1,000, but I can  find only one station from OH/MI that has exceeded 1,000 
contacts in this  contest - W8MJ in 2003 had 1,006 contacts and his score of 
236,410 is the  current record for MI.  The record for OH was set by N8AA 
last  year.  John had 897 contacts and 234 mults for a score of 209,898.   

I can't think of any reason why we should produce lower scores  than our 
neighbors, so I believe that this is probably just an anomaly that  will 
shortly be corrected.  We have several stations with the potential  to go over 
1,000 contacts and quite a few more who should be able to top 900.  

There are many more things that could be said, but this is  already too 
long.  Good luck to everyone on Saturday and let's have fun  in the contest!  

73, Hal W1NN

NAQP Whip   
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