[RTTY] CQ/RJ WW, single op operating times

Fri, 27 Sep 2002 21:15:15 -0400 (EDT)

   From: Ekki Plicht <ekki@plicht.de>
   Date: Fri, 27 Sep 2002 23:46:21 +0000

   Question:
   What humanly single operator is able to work full 48hrs of a contest? Now the 
   challenge is not only software, hardware, antennas and skills, but also 
   physical fitness.

   It's a long while that I can remeber staying awake for 48hrs. 24 is no 
   problem, but 48? 

   Isn't it that the change of this rules provokes misuse, i.e. claiming single 
   op when indeed two or more ops were active?

   Are results really comparable now for single ops? Before, every serious player 
   had the chance to put 30hrs of full effort within the two days, thats 
   feasible. Now I have to compare my results to some (few?) others who worked 
   more or less the same hours than I did.

   I don't know now how long I will be in the test, lets see how long I can 
   endure, hi hi.

I've been waiting for this to come up. See article below.  Maybe we
should start drug testing?

And the other answer is: the strategy of choosing your sleep time.

73, doug

Boston Globe Online / Nation | World / Who needs sleep? New pill hits scene

   Who needs sleep? New pill hits scene

   By Carey Goldberg, Globe Staff, 9/22/2002

   Just to see what it was like, the Cambridge computer programmer
   stayed awake four straight days. He felt fine, he reported later, not
   jittery, nicely focused. ''Imagine,'' he wrote in an e-mail, ''having
   all the time you could want to goof off, knowing that you still have
   just as much time as usual to spend on things you have to do.''

   On the other hand, he added, ''if you lack imagination and run out of
   things to do, you could end up bored real fast.''

   The programmer, who asked that he not be identified, has not repeated
   his ''little experiment,'' partly because of its questionable
   legality. To stay awake, he borrowed a prescription drug, modafinil,
   that is meant for narcoleptics, whose affliction causes excessive
   sleepiness.

   But he appears to have plenty of company in his desire to cheat time
   by cheating sleep. In the three years since the drug was introduced
   under the brand name Provigil for narcolepsy, sales have skyrocketed
   to more than 250,000 prescriptions every three months, outstripping
   the needs of the nation's estimated 150,000 narcoleptics.

   Cephalon, the company that makes Provigil, says the seemingly excess
   prescriptions mainly go to patients with other diseases that cause
   fatigue.

   But the buzz about modafinil as a potential elixir for millions of
   ''sleep when I die'' Americans has been building for months. Some
   predict it may become the next Viagra or Prozac, the next ''lifestyle
   drug.''

   Sleep specialists hate that idea. Though modafinil causes few side
   effects, they say, and though it shows little potential for addiction,
   using it lightly to deprive the body of sleep, especially long-term,
   is asking for trouble.

   Nonetheless, talk about modafinil has been spreading, including
   debates online and in print about whether such a pill could be a dream
   come true for the underslept or a nightmare for a society that is
   already running too fast.

   On the Web site Metafilter.com, a group weblog with thousands of
   chatty members, some loved the idea of Provigil.

   ''Heck, imagine making love all night, and still being alert at work
   the next day!'' one posting read.

   ''Ever since I was a kid, I imagined having a magical clock that stops
   time,'' read another.

   But other posters worried. ''Drugs like this become a bit of an arms
   race,'' wrote one. ''What do you do when all of your classmates are
   taking Provigil and are more prepared for exams than you are? What do
   you do when the job promotion goes to the keener putting in 16 hours a
   day?''

   A Washington Post reporter who tried staying up for two days on
   Provigil gave it warm reviews in the paper, writing that ''Modafinil
   may have the power to change Washington, D.C., and other high-powered
   cities.''

   But then, he wrote that story during a 40-hour period of
   modafinil-enhanced wakefulness, so his judgment may have been
   affected. Modafinil is believed to target areas of the brain
   responsible for maintaining wakefulness more precisely than caffeine
   or other stimulants, so it does not bring on a wired feeling or later
   crash, but experts say it does not completely do away with all the
   mental impairment that comes with sleep deprivation.

   The military, too, has added to the attention paid modafinil by
   reporting publicly that it has been testing the drug as ''performance
   enhancement'' for combatants who must stay awake for days. It turned
   out that they could function well for 40 hours, sleep eight hours, and
   then get up and go another 40 hours before needing rest.

   For all the talk, however, it remains unclear how much Provigil is
   already being used by otherwise healthy sleep-cheaters.

   Since the biotech firm Cephalon introduced Provigil in early 1999, the
   drug's sales have jumped to a rate of $200 million per year, if
   current sales keep up. Quarterly sales are up about 70 percent over
   last year, and prescriptions are now running at the rate of 250,000 in
   a three-month period, according to IMS Health, a health information
   company.

   Those numbers seem particularly high given that there are only an
   estimated 150,000 narcoleptics in the country. And company officials
   have acknowledged that perhaps only a quarter of the prescriptions are
   going to narcoleptics.

   But they also say they are not encouraging the use of Provigil by
   people who do not need it, and they have no indication that it is
   being widely abused.

   Rather, they believe it is being prescribed ''off-label'' by doctors
   to help patients with a variety of sleep disorders. And they are
   seeking approval from the Food and Drug Administration to broaden
   Provigil's label to include a wider variety of diseases that cause
   fatigue.

   However, there is anecdotal evidence of a nonmedical demand for
   Provigil. For example, Dr. Richard J. Castriotta, a sleep expert at
   the University of Texas, said a handful of people have asked him for a
   Provigil prescription just to perk them up, but he has refused them.
   Meanwhile, Web sites offer to sell Provigil without a prescription.

   Modafinil may be OK for pilots or emergency workers, Castriotta said,
   but it would be wrong ''to make that leap and say, `Well, gosh, why
   can't I just sleep three hours a night as a way of life?' We don't
   know enough about sleep deprivation to be able to determine what the
   long-range effects might be, and that's very, very dangerous.''

   He and other researchers predicted that in any case, because Provigil
   is a controlled substance, and because it brings users no euphoria, it
   is unlikely to be very widely abused.

   But in a country where more than half the population is averaging more
   than three cups of coffee per day, it does seem to have broad
   potential appeal - particularly for the truckers and students and new
   parents and others whose lives sometimes require all-nighters.

   International Antiaging Systems, a company that has one of the
   offshore pharmacy Web sites that sells modafinil, says its modafinil
   sales have at least doubled in the last year, but it would not specify
   the numbers involved.

   A swath of studies, many sponsored by Cephalon, are underway to see if
   Provigil might help patients with the fatigue caused by diseases
   ranging from multiple sclerosis to attention deficit to sleep apnea to
   depression. Much of the initial research shows tentative promise.

   Another set of extensive studies is looking at whether modafinil will
   help shift workers who have to stay awake at times when their bodies
   beg to sleep. Their numbers are estimated at about 15 million.

   Provigil's side effects tend to be mild, Cephalon says, with headache
   and nausea the most common. It can also interact poorly with some
   other drugs; in particular, it can reduce the effects of birth control
   pills.

   The prospect of Provigil or even better ''wake-enhancing'' drugs
   gaining broad usage deeply concerns sleep specialists like Dr. Thomas
   Scammell of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, a leading authority
   on modafinil.

   ''For society, it does bring up a really key question,'' he said.
   ''The simplest way to answer it is to say, `If I could give you a pill
   that would take away your hunger, does that mean you shouldn't eat?'
   Well, duh, you've got to eat and you know why, because you'll waste
   away.''

   ''The problem,'' he added, ''is that the science of sleep research
   hasn't reached the point that we can say, `If you don't get enough
   sleep, X, Y, and Z will happen to you.''

   However, a growing body of research does indicate that lack of sleep
   may be even more harmful than previously thought. It may be
   contributing to obesity by changing the metabolisms of the underslept
   and to heart disease by causing low-grade inflammation.

   But Americans are nonetheless sleeping less and working more,
   according to the National Sleep Foundation. Its polls have found that
   Americans sleep an average of about seven hours a night during the
   work week, an hour and a half less than in 1900, and that one third of
   adults are so sleepy in the daytime they could be dangerous. Federal
   highway officials say lack of sleep causes 100,000 crashes a year.

   To Dr. Daniel F. Kripke, a sleep expert at the University of
   California at San Diego, excitement over a new drug like modafinil is
   neither new nor very exciting - not to a veteran doctor who remembers
   when cocaine and amphetamines spurred similar reactions.

   ''I think it is a promising drug but it has only been tested a
   little,'' said Dr. Kripke, whose own research suggests that people who
   sleep somewhat less than average may live longer.

   ''I'm very much in favor of broader scientific testing,'' he said,
   ''but I'm not in favor of people jumping off the deep end.''

   Carey Goldberg can be reached at goldberg@globe.com.