[PVRCNC] SS on the horizon

[Jim Jordan, K4QPL]

That's it! Thanks. Unfortunately it's SSB only and there's no counterpart in 
the 2012 CW expanded report.

Nevertheless, it's a great guide to who's where when over the 30 hr period 
and where the rate is likely to be. While a lot is made of the "sweep" and 
mults do have importance, to a great extent if you're unassisted, if you get 
the Q's the mults will take care of themselves (or they won't). N1MM has a 
feature that values mults against Q's and it really shows that if you've got 
rate, and you're LP or QRP, spending time chasing a mult in a pileup may be 
counterproductive. Get serious about mults only later in the contest after 
your rate has dropped to the point where it's not costing you anything to 
hunt. I've actually had that rare one call me late in the 'test. Of course, 
if your primary goal is a mug.......

That graph also indicates something that I have suspected for a long 
time--the rate for the average to good contest op with an average to good 
station in SS is best not in the first, but the second hour. The big guns 
get settled in to their run frequencies, the S&P stations spread out with 
less QRM and there's more chance that you'll get a QSO on the first call. 
When I've operated QRP, I usually wait out the first half hour or more or go 
to a less populated band for the kickoff.

Without any hard evidence to back it up, I would also suspect that the 
upward trend on Sunday afternoon seen for SSB is considerably flatter for 
CW. I don't think there's quite the same "fresh meat" factor and with less 
total participation, getting any rate at all after the first ten 
hours--unless of course you are the "fresh meat" being fought over by 
everyone, is problematic.

Oh, if we could just work the same stations on every band like 99% of the 
other contests....

73,

Jim, K4QPL

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "W4KAZ" <w4kaz at arrl.net>
To: <pvrcnc at mailman.qth.net>
Sent: Friday, October 11, 2013 6:23 PM
Subject: Re: [PVRCNC] SS on the horizon


> FWIW....I am in it.  Probably both modes, depending upon my whereabouts on 
> SSB weekend.
>
> Also, be forewarned the skimmers may be up/down/allaround on CW weekend in 
> direct proportion to my BIC time and band usage.  Until I come up with a 
> relay box to pull the skimmer to ground on the current band on my xmit, 
> I'll pull the plug on them as needed.  Manually.
>
>> Sometime, somewhere, I saw a graphic analysis
>
> I think maybe the expanded results article?
>
> Is this it?
>
> http://www.arrl.org/files/file/ContestResults/2012/2012-SSPH-Web-V2.pdf
>
> w4kaz
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