Thanks to all who "voted" - either on the list, or direct to me.
We haven't kept a close count, but I think it is fair to say that the
answers generally fall into these several categories:
1. Don't touch it.
2. Move it a little.
3. Move it a lot.
4. Have a second event near the equinox (or two).
The BARC knows a winning thing when it sees it - and the current Stew is
a winning thing. If we could move the holidays up a bit to eliminate the
conflict, it would be darn near perfect.
One of the hard realities of scheduling the event is the placement of the
"other" 160 meter contests - ARRL 160 and CQ 160. Moving the contest closer
to one of these runs the risk of "topband burnout". (We don't actually know
if there is such a thing, but we wouldn't want to risk it.)
Next year's event would normally fall onto the 29th/30th of December.
Moving it up a week to the 22nd/23rd seems like a poor idea, and moving
it to the 15th/18th gets it awfully close to the ARRL 160 contest (two
weeks previous). One option might be to move it to January 5th/6th,
but that is only 3 weeks before the CQ 160 contest - which is probably
the best world wide DX contest we have from an activity level standpoint.
We don't think moving this a little is really in the cards.
I think what the BARC is likely to do is sponsor an "activity night" or
two - closer to the equinox - where we encourage activity near the start
and end of the traditional "season" for us northern hemisphere guys. We
will use the same rules for the main Stew contest - and publish the
scores and everything. However, unless these catch on with lots of
activity, we will not be doing a full writeup - or awards for them. The
scores will simply be posted - along with your soapbox comments.
Unless a signifcant majority of people think this is a big mistake - we
are going to sponsor the first one during the 24 hours before the WAG
(Worked all Germany) contest. This runs the weekend before the CQ WW
SSB contest.
They have chosen their starting time wisely (1500z), so we can run the
event starting on Friday at 1500Z and end it on Saturday at 1500Z.
This will give those people in asia/VK/ZL a break so the contest isn't
running late for them on Sunday. I doubt there will be any action from
the USA on Friday morning, so, it will essentially be an all night
contest on Friday night for the rest of us.
Yes - there are lots of contests after this weekend - but if you are a
true topbander - you are really on the band anytime there is action.
This is just a case where you know there will be action ahead of time,
and can appropriate steps ahead of time to assure you can be in front
of the radio to enjoy it. Suggestions for proper preperations might
be faking an illness to stay home from work - or sending you wife out
for a night out with the girls.
So - unless we see someone explain why this is a totally bad idea, we
will move ahead with making the necessary arrangements to publicize
this event.
Tree N6TR
tree@kkn.net
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