[VHFcontesting] The January Contest

[w8zn at comcast.net]

There has been a lot of comments about either changing the date or time of the January contest however I've not seen any input from the rovers.

How much of a pain would it be for rovers if the contest started Friday night (0000z) and ended Sunday morning before the playoff games started? Is the normal rover route start close to home and end far away or vise versa? When I rove, I generally start far away and work back since the contest ends so late but ending by noonish on Sunday would allow you to start close and finish away and still get home before dinner! Plus, I like starting close so you can get sync'ed with stations you want to follow at different sites and check freq's and such but that may be just me.

Terry Price - W8ZN  ex K8ISK
FM18dv - 1.8MHz thru 47GHz
K8GP - The Grid Pirates - FM19bb

----- Original Message -----
From: Sean Kutzko, KX9X <kx9x at arrl.org>
To: vhfcontesting at contesting.com
Sent: Thu, 31 Jan 2013 16:11:17 -0000 (UTC)
Subject: Re: [VHFcontesting] The January Contest

Hi Phil (and everybody else)-

Greetings from the Baltimore airport.

My opinion on time changes: It seems moving it to 0000z Saturday puts a lot of burden on the Rovers. Either they take the day off of work to get ready, or they race home after work to get prepped for the start very quickly. In colder climates, starting a rove at night doesn't sound very thrilling to me. That's just my opinion. I guess it boils down to whether any given rover would prefer to be tired up front or tired at the end of the event(or both).

There's the propagation wildcard, too. If there's no enhancement on 6 or 2 at 0000z, between a slow evening start and the overnight, you're going to enter the contest with a lot of dead time right off the bat. WSJT might cover some of that... maybe.

As a fixed station, my personal preference would be to leave the times alone. It provides the rovers a chance to get a good night's sleep before the contest and allows time in the morning for me to do other things (sleep in, do stuff with friends/family) before the event starts.

I suppose there could be some merit to starting it at, say, 1200z or 1500z Saturday. 1200z seems awfully early to begin a rove on the West coast, though, and they're not going to work a lot of folks... I doubt many casual ops in W6/W7 are going to get up at 4am Saturday to start the contest.

Your mileage may vary...so to speak.

73,

Sean Kutzko KX9X
Contest Branch Manager
ARRL - The national association for Amateur Radio
225 Main Street
Newington, CT  06111 USA
(860) 594-0232
email: kx9x at arrl.org

--- On Wed, 1/30/13, Phil Theis <phil at k3tuf.com> wrote:

From: Phil Theis <phil at k3tuf.com>
Subject: Re: [VHFcontesting] The January Contest
To: vhfcontesting at contesting.com
Date: Wednesday, January 30, 2013, 9:22 PM

Hi Sean,
Glad you addressed this, but you didn't address the idea of a time change.
Your thoughts?
thanks
Phil K3TUF
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