Jeff, KU8E wrote:
> It would be nice if CQ could maybe swap the CW and SSB weekends for both
> CQWW and WPX every other year so CW doesn't always fall on a holiday
> weekend.
Boy, I'd love that. It would reduce the frequency of eye rolling when I miss
family time over Thanksgiving or Memorial Day weekend (or our anniversary,
which is May 29) for the umpteenth time. I've managed to build those
concessions into the schedule over the past 14 years, but I know my XYL
would be thrilled if every other year I could spend those holiday weekends
with my family.
It would also allow me to attend Dayton more often (very tough to get two
full weekends of ham radio time in one month.)
It's also an attractive idea from the standpoint of experiencing somewhat
different propagation characteristics every other year, and possibly needing
to vary strategy to compensate. More fun. It may be argued that different
propagation seasons would invalidate comparison with prior records. I don't
think that's a valid argument for CQWW, where the contests are separated by
only one month, but propagation between the WPX CW and SSB weekends is often
quite different. All the same, I think propagations is so variable anyway
that it's probably moot.
All that said, such a change would benefit only US ops because these are US
holidays. I fear the contest sponsors might have a problem with that. Also,
inevitably some people would get confused, at least during the first three
or four years. Heaven help us if a bunch of phone ops decide to do an
expensive DXpedition, only to find out when they get on the air that this
year it's the CW weekend!
Further, it could be argued that US DXpeditioners benefit from the long
holiday weekends because they don't have to take as many days off from work.
But why not share that benefit with the SSB fans?
73, Dick WC1M
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