[VHFcontesting] The January Contest

[Zack Widup]

As a portable, which has some similarity to a Rover, it has worked out well
for me to wake up on Saturday morning, pack the car with all the equipment
for 9 or 10 bands, drive to my site at 9 am or so, get everything set up by
late morning so I can make sure everything is working, and then start at
contest start. In the winter I don't like to tear down after dark so I
generally will go till maybe 4 pm on Sunday and then tear down. In summer
contests I will often operate till the end of contest, tear down and get
home by 1 am on Monday. I can get away with being low on sleep at work once
in a while. :-)

If the contest started on Friday night I would probably miss all the
contest time till late morning on Saturday.

Participation during particular times has varied widely in this area
(central Illinois) over the years. There are people who get on the air
after dinner on Saturdays and Sundays to work some people. Mornings have
seemed to be busy times, too. There's always a flurry of activity when
contest starts. If there's no six meter opening, the afternoon on Sunday
generally slows down a lot. I've had zero QSO hours on Sunday afternoons.

I would prefer to leave the times as they are.

73, Zack W9SZ


On Thu, Jan 31, 2013 at 11:22 AM, <w8zn at comcast.net> wrote:

> 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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