[RTTY] Low Scores - Low participation 2002 ARRL RU?

[Scott Schultz]

Don & Friends,

Well I know my score is lower since I was unable to work the total allowable
time, but I still concur with Don on this one. 10 meters was the choice for
DX on Sunday morning, but 15 also had a respectable showing.

Several years ago, there was a huge discussion on the reflectors about
tweaking the buffers to make the most efficient use of time for each
contact. Some users were quite adamant about shaving every millisecond
possible off the contact time somehow thinking this would magically increase
their score. My contention then, and still is now, that we don't run out of
time, we run out of people to contact and this seemed to be especially true
this year.

Last year my two partners and I placed 10th in the Low Power Category for
North America. Not bad for 100 watts and a vertical! Although I have not yet
compared my dupe sheets from last year to this year, it appears to me that I
had a smaller percentage of unique contacts this year. There appear to be a
larger percentage of contestants who appear on 3, 4 and even a few on all 5
bands than in pervious years. Of course more dupes translates into fewer
multipliers! And what about a clean sweep of all 50 states this year? Fuhget
about it!

73,
de Scott Schultz N0IU
n0iu@arrl.net


----- Original Message -----
From: "Hill, Don" <dhill@cprk.com>
To: "RTTY Reflector (E-mail)" <rtty@contesting.com>
Sent: Monday, January 07, 2002 12:38 PM
Subject: [RTTY] Low Scores - Low participation 2002 ARRL RU?


>From looking at all the scores posted, it appears I'm not the only one that
will post a lower score for this year's Roundup.  I had anticipated a lower
score than last year as I watched one of the biggest storm areas I've seen
in some time approach Saturday morning.  However, despite 13 hours of storms
and rain static, I was only 50 QSO's off last year's pace when I took my
rest period.  This gave me some hope that I could keep pace with last year's
score.

With excellent propagation on Sunday, I figured I shouldn't have trouble
keeping pace. But that was not the case.  The lack of EU stations on 10 & 15
meters Sunday was a great cause for alarm.  The weather had cleared and
condx were ripe for good solid runs on 10 & 15 meters that never happened.
Where was everyone?

15M should have been open to EU later than 1900Z and I think it was, but
there were no EU stations to be found.  Endless unanswered CQ's after 1900Z
convinced me that not too many NA stations were available either.  With 5
hours to go, I was getting the feeling that I had worked everyone.  I
suppose a jump in the
K index to 3 had something to do with DX paths closing down earlier.  I
don't remember this contest ever slowing down Sunday like it did this year.
Several stations were missing.  Where was W6/G0AZT, K3MM, WT4I & others?

I have to think that participation was considerably lower than last year.  I
only missed V, YT and NU which isn't bad but I also missed ZS6RVG whom I
normally always work. In all, I worked every multiplier I heard and still
came up 10-15 mults short of last year. I left an antenna pointed at Nevada
for the last 5 hours to no avail.

I don't ever recall having to deal with weather in this contest before.
Being in January, it's rare we get thunderstorms.  In 14 years, I guess the
law of averages caught up to it.  With thunder, lightning, high wind popping
the antennas and two power disruptions, I guess I feel pretty lucky nothing
really bad happened.  I
rarely experience "rain static" at my QTH, but it was with me for 13
straight hours Saturday - yech!

Do you think activity was lower this year?

73, Don AA5AU