Topband: New rules? (Was CQ 160 WW)

[Ford Peterson]

Bill wrote:

...snip...

> N2IC replied:
> >Careful....That comment means that no one west of the Mississippi River
> should be CQing before 0800Z, since, by definition, we would be CQing on
> top of EU DX that we can't hear.
> 
>         Steve, this might be a better example for Westerners.
> JA's are only in the 1810-1825 area.  I don't feel anyone has
> any business CQ-ing in that area unless they have adequate
> RX antennas to actually hear JA's answer.  They should not be
> using that part of the band before sunrise simply to run USA.
> There are other areas of the band where they can probably work
> more USA due to less QRM.  Likewise, stations that cannot hear
> EU can go below 1810 or above 1850 where they are less likely
> to QRM EU.

Wow!  I guess you think the band should really get carved up for a contest--make special windows for everybody and a cadre of frequency police to enforce it!  There are contesters that would park in that window and CQ just to prevent points for the Qs that they cannot make anyway.  Of the 800-900 people on the band, you would have about 300 of them stuffed between 1800 and 1810.  How much sense does that make?  Then another 300 that cannot hear EU would be stuck on S&P because they cannot get a match above 1860 or so and cannot find a hole in that magic 1850 to 1860 slot that they need to share with another 300 or so that cannot hear the DX either.  How much sense does that make?  Of course, they could sit and listen to Jeff book a good share of the 500-600 EU Qs in one of his awesome runs of DX.  How much sense does that make?  

Bottom line is that getting lots of people on the band to work a contest gives big guns the opportunity to land a bigger number of Qs than the year before simply because the population is bigger, but it doesn't lend itself to contesting with DX.  This thread serves to illustrate how anti-competitive this and other 160M contests have become when we allow DX-to-DX and US-to-US and US-to-DX QSOs all at the same time.  Maybe the time has come to push the CQ committee to turn this into the same rules as other CQWW DX contests.  E.g. work each zone once per band and you are done with working Qs with your home country!  And make the ARRL 160M lovefest a SS rules event.  Of course, then everybody will whine about the east coast guns parking their 1.5KW CQ grinders every 250 Hz throughout the opening and creating a wall of RF between EU and west of the Mississippi.  Makes one wonder if there is a fix to all of this.

Ford-N0FP
ford at cmgate.com