[VHFcontesting] Date of the January Contest

[Marshall-K5QE]

Hello Jeff and all the other VHF operators....

Do people actually stop contesting so they can watch a stupid football 
game?????  SLAP!!  OK, reality has returned.....  I am FOR anything that 
will make our contests better.  Careful scheduling is certainly 
something that we need to do.

This year, we had NAQP and the Jan VHF contest on the same weekend.  
Does the right hand of the ARRL not know what the left hand is doing??  
I know several good VHF ops that decided to do NAQP rather than the Jan 
VHF contest.  This was a big loss to our contest....if they had decided 
to run the VHF contest instead of NAQP, I doubt that anyone would have 
noticed.  My point is that even a "small" distraction disproportionately 
hurts us and our contest.

Super Bowl Sunday now seems to be the first Sunday in February. Is that 
correct??  Is it now fixed so that we can plan in the future??  As I 
recall, the Super Bowl used to be in January, but the NFL kept moving it 
backwards until it now has landed in February.

Concerning Jeff's idea of moving the Jan contest to the weekend before 
the Super Bowl: That is certainly a workable idea.  As he mentioned, it 
would put the contest further away from the Winter Es season.

Your mention of the Winter Es season has gotten me to think in a 
different direction.  We had a really nice Es opening on 6M in 2012 and 
a fair one in 2013.  It would really be wonderful if the contest were 
close to the peak of the Winter Es season.  Lots of Es on 6M would be a 
GREAT contest enhancer. Suppose the Jan contest were held on the first 
weekend of January.  Someone is going to jump up and say that there are 
playoff games then, too.  Probably, that is true, but they would be of a 
lot less significance.

OK, suppose we could avoid the football games altogether??  I would 
suggest that we consider having the January contest start at 0000Z on 
FRIDAY night and continue to 1600Z on Sunday morning. This scheme would 
give us two nights and two mornings to take advantage of any extended 
propagation that might occur.  That is a total time of 40 hours as 
opposed to the 33 hours straight that we have now.  For me, the 33 hours 
straight is one really hard slog in the mud.  Suppose we included two 
"breaks" or "quiet periods" of 5 hours each.  Then the total time on the 
air would be 30 hours.  The "breaks" could be scheduled late at night 
where there is practically no activity anyway.  I believe that the 
single op stations sleep during these hours now.  Getting some sleep 
would really help AND more time in the contest would be during 
productive hours.

The time from the start of the contest to the end of the contest would 
be longer, but the total time on the air would be shorter. More 
importantly, the non-break times would be much more in the realm of 
"prime time".  There are several HF contests that start at 0000Z on 
Friday and have breaks in them, so this does not seem to be a huge 
departure from other contests.  I do know this....getting some sleep on 
Friday night and Saturday night would really be welcome.

I can see only one possible "snag" with the above idea.  It would 
probably hurt the rovers.  They would be on the road for 2 days and 
nights as opposed to the 1 night that they have now.  However, this 
would allow the rovers to stop and get a decent night's sleep rather 
than driving all night and all day so that they can locate a bridge 
abutment somewhere.  Of course, the rovers could also take advantage of 
the two nights and two mornings which should give them more time with 
good propagation characteristics.

The argument that "we have never done it this way, so we can't change" 
OR the NIH argument(Not Invented Here) are not worth consideration.  
There may be some serious objection to a plan such as this(other than 
"its different").  Of course, we don't have to change the June or Sept 
contest at all as there are no football games scheduled in those months.

I believe that this scheme has the same chance of being adopted as the 
proverbial "snowball in hell", but it is something worth thinking 
about.  It would get us away from the football games completely.....no 
matter which weekend in Jan was chosen for the contest.  NOW, if we can 
just get the Jan VHF contest off the same weekend as NAQP......

73 Marshall K5QE


On 1/27/2013 3:24 PM, wa2teo at aol.com wrote:
> After many years of watching the bands die off once the NFL Playoff games start, I am thinking I'd like to write the VUAC to see if somehow we can't get the contest date moved to the week before the Super Bowl when there are no NFL playoff games. I know this has been discussed before and there are some barriers. It's one week later so there is less likelihood of Es on 6, The CQ 160 contest etc. But we also have the NAQP on the current weekend as well as the NFL games.
>
> It seems to me that this problem has gotten so bad the last few years it's worthwhile to take another look. Every year my rate plummets as soon as the games come on. It doesn't help that the Patriots, Giants, Redskins, Ravens and Eagles have been regulars the last several years, all in major parts of my contesting zone. But wherever you are in the country my sense is that activity drops when the games start.
>
> Thoughts?
>
> Tnx,
>
> Jeff K1TEO
>