[UK-CONTEST] Split Frequency in Contests?

[Dez in Cyprus]

Hi guys,

Been following this thread with interest.

Being at the 'hot end' of a pile-up on 80m whilst and running low power into
a poor antenna often
calls for varied techniques to keep the QSO rate up.

In my opinion there is little else that can beat a steady stream of callers;
two or three
stations at a time. Even on 80m lp, a good rate of 100/hr can be maintained.

However occasionally condx change, high QRN and a sudden increase of callers
due to a
DX cluster spot sometimes makes working split an option to consider.

I had similar circumstances for a short while last Saturday night.

Callers were copying me only averagely well under the poor and noisey 80m
condx.
At the time, the rate was good at around 100/hr. Then dozens more stations
appeared
as the result of a cluster spot.

The rate plummeted.

On bands like 10m/15m, where skip is often selective, a big pile-up is still
easy to control
running simplex. The DX stations exchange is not lost quite so easily under
the stations calling
out of turn - or worse still, those calling 'blind'.

I argue that different condx call for different operating techniques.

Put a weak DX stn on 80m, add a big pileup, result is everyone can lose
their rate - both the
runner or the search and pouncer.

In 23 hours of operation in CQWW, I had to work split on just one occasion,
and that was for 10-15
minutes. This was simply to work through a sudden influx of callers. After
10-15 minutes it was
possible to go back and work simplex. Split was not required again for the
rest of the contest.