If a contest starts at 22:00z friday and finishes at 16:00z sunday,
between January and March there is a world area where two sunsets and
two sunrises occur without the need that a full 48 hours passes.
In that area, ending a contest at 16:00z instead of 00:00z has the
noticeable benefit that operators haven't to suffer a long stop from
16z to 22z, or until to the end of the contest.
Hours of darkness are maximized, peaks of propagations are included
while "dead" periods minimized.
This zone tailored timing is not a perfectly fair feature in a world
wide contest but it's also true that the number of stations active from
such area is bigger now, and was enormously exceeding in the past, the
number of the entrants from the rest of the world.
Probably, at the times the contest was first issued who organizes it
had to take also this kind of reality in account.
73,
Mauri I4JMY
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