[VHFcontesting] How many people are affected by the new rule change?

[R. Michael West]

Nice factual analysis Duffy, and thankfully lacking the unnecessary hysteria of earlier postings.

73, Mike K6NC

-----Original Message-----
From: James Duffey [mailto:JamesDuffey at comcast.net]
Sent: Wednesday, May 27, 2009 05:57 PM
To: 'VHF Contesting Reflector'
Cc: 'James Duffey'
Subject: [VHFcontesting] How many people are affected by the new rule change?

Rather than speculate, it is interesting to see who this affects. January 2008 VHF contest, the first one with a Limited Rover entries: 1 station (out of 25), chose to include 1296 MHz instead of 222 MHz June 2008 VHF contest 5 out of 26 entries chose to use another band than 222 MHz in the contest The winner, KG6TOA operated on 2.3, 3.4, 5.7 and 10 GHz. One station chose to operate 2304 as the fourth band. The other 3 chose 1296 MHz over 222 MHz. September 2008 Contest No stations out of 13 chose to use another band other than 222 MHz. Interestingly enough, all but one entry used all four bands. August 2008 UHF Contest 3 out of 7 entries chose to use bands other than the lowest 4. Interestingly enough, none of the limited rovers chose to use 902 MHz. So, limited rovers that want to stay competitive will have to get on 902 MHz. That will be my summer project. KG6TOA again used 2.3, 3.4, 5.7 and 10 GHz. The other 2 chose 10 GHz. It looks like the rule change will have a significant impact on UHF Limited Roving. It has a bigger impact than I thought on the June contest, and not too much on the January and September contest. DEMI should see a rush on 902 MHz boxes, well 6 or 7 maybe. :^)= If I look at the Classic Rover scores, which has larger numbers of participants, and hence better statistics, it looks like there are more QSOs made in the contest on 222 MHz than on 1296 MHz. You have to go all the way down to the 15th place finisher before you find someone with more QSOs on 1296 MHz than 222 MHz. So on the face of it, it seems like choosing 1296 over 222 MHz may be a poor strategy. This makes sense, as it is a lot cheaper to generate power on 222 MHz than 1296 MHz. The rule change is not the end of the earth and may well level the competition in the Limited Rover class. I suspect that the committee did not really look at the UHF results too closely though. It will require equipment investments by those of us who rove in that contest if we want to be competitive. - Duffey -- KK6MC James Duffey Cedar Crest NM _______________________________________________ VHFcontesting mailing list VHFcontesting at contesting.com http://lists.contesting.com/mailman/listinfo/vhfcontesting