When you look back at such things as quotas (for example you could only work
5 DL's) and the long hours of the SS and ARRL DX Contests these were all
aimed at leveling the ground against the few super stations and for the rank
and file contester. It sure made you be a Dxer in the DX contests as you
had to look for another country to work once you got your quota of DL.s or
G's.
The long hours made you study propagation and often make on the run guesses
at when to operate. The pre 1963 SS was 73 hours and you picked the best
40. Often the contest was won or lost in who had the best last hour or so.
There were only a few who could run the entire contest. Even the top
contenders spent at least 30 to 40% of the time S&Ping. Plus there were
not as many active stations. I can work more Europeans in several hours now
than were on the entire ARRL DX or CQ WW DX in say 1960 which was a good sun
spot year. The winners became very adapt at working multipliers and
balancing running with S&P.
I remember marveling at K6EVR sit on 21.3 and run for hours in the Phone SS.
Same for W6PQW (now W6BH) on 10 meters. Lee made more contacts than all the
rest of us (except for K6EVR) on 10 single band and he ran 90 watts. When
SSB took over the SS I finally was able to run most of the contest although
not on one frequency like the W6 gang. In 1962 several contestants started
to approach 300K (on both CW and phone) so the next year ARRL switched the
contest to a 24 hour affair. This the ARRL believed would keep SS scores to
150 to 200K
(boy were they wrong!!). CW scores were move affected than phone with SSB
in vogue.
I firmly believe contests should adapt with the times. But in the short
term the old adage "if it isn't broken don't fix it" rules. But lets not go
back please!
73 Dave K4JRB
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