Topband: CQ 160 2003 Rules Changes - Limit Mulit-ops to 30 or 36 hours

[Steve Ireland]

At 01:31 AM 29/09/2002 -0400, you wrote:

W2GD said:
SNIP
>>None of our team members look forward to the 
>drudgery of working a station every 8 to 10 minutes, for hours on end.  
>Topband is definitely not a friendly place at High Noon!  And we feel this 
>event should not be an endurance race.
>
>So NOW is probably the ideal time to provide all long suffering multi-op 
>teams with some relief just like the single-op entrants.  We propose the 
>rules be revised to allow a maximum number of operating hours for multi-op 
>entries of either 30 or 36 total hours.
>
>It's our belief other multi-op groups world-wide feel the way we do about 
>daylight operation, and will welcome this rule change.   Hopefully other 
>teams (from N.A, EU, and elsewhere) will comment.

VK6VZ said:

G'day John et al

For those of us in the Southern Hemisphere, where it is mid-summer during
the CQ 160, it would be nice to even see the hours limited to 24 hours at
the most for either single or multi-ops.  The hours of darkness down here
in VK6 at that time around 10 hours a day at the most - so the most
operating we can do is for 20 hours anyway.

With regard to "the drudgery of working a station every 8 to 10 minutes for
hours on end", for a VK6 topbander this sounds - in the word of the Monty
Python character who thought a cardboard box was a great house - like
"luxury".

Apart from the hour after sunset and the hour before sunrise, when a
station every couple of minutes might be worked if conditions are very good
and I am very lucky, working one station every twenty minutes is a VERY
VERY good rate here during the rest of the hours of darkness for the rest
of the contest.

Oh you lucky men and women of the northern hemisphere!  

Vy 73,

Steve, VK6VZ