>From Carl K9LA - NCJ Editor
NCJ sponsors four RTTY contests per year - two NAQP RTTY contests (February
and now July) and two RTTY Sprint contests (March and October).
Participation in the NAQP RTTY contests is healthy. For example, over 160
logs were received for the July 2002 NAQP RTTY contest (as reported in the
November/December 2002 NCJ).
But participation in the RTTY Sprints is not as healthy. The number of logs
received in years past is as follows:
Mar 00 20
Oct 00 20
Mar 01 30
Oct 01 37
Mar 02 32
Oct 02 43
This averages to 30 logs per event. Although the trend has increased in the
past year (perhaps due to the new rule that you can work the same station
again, even on the same band, as long as these QSOs are separated by 3 other
QSOs), this is still a small number of logs.
As a reference point, the January 2002 NAQP CW and Phone contests each
received around 350 logs, while the September 2002 CW and Phone Sprints each
received roughly half as many. Thus the participation in the RTTY Sprints
compared to the NAQP RTTYs is way out of proportion compared to the CW and
Phone counterparts.
I'd like your comments on several questions. Should NCJ continue to offer
RTTY Sprints? Have other RTTY contests become more attractive? Would just
having the NAQP RTTY contests be sufficient to satisfy your RTTY contesting
desires?
Thanks for your input. John WA9ALS (RTTY Contesting columnist for NCJ) will
forward your inputs to me.
Carl K9LA
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