Rather than speculate, it is interesting to see who this affects.
January 2008 VHF contest, the first one with a Limited Rover entries:
1 station (out of 25), chose to include 1296 MHz instead of 222 MHz
June 2008 VHF contest
5 out of 26 entries chose to use another band than 222 MHz in the
contest
The winner, KG6TOA operated on 2.3, 3.4, 5.7 and 10 GHz.
One station chose to operate 2304 as the fourth band.
The other 3 chose 1296 MHz over 222 MHz.
September 2008 Contest
No stations out of 13 chose to use another band other than 222 MHz.
Interestingly enough, all but one entry used all four bands.
August 2008 UHF Contest
3 out of 7 entries chose to use bands other than the lowest 4.
Interestingly enough, none of the limited rovers chose to use 902 MHz.
So, limited rovers that want to stay competitive will have to get on
902 MHz. That will be my summer project.
KG6TOA again used 2.3, 3.4, 5.7 and 10 GHz.
The other 2 chose 10 GHz.
It looks like the rule change will have a significant impact on UHF
Limited Roving. It has a bigger impact than I thought on the June
contest, and not too much on the January and September contest.
DEMI should see a rush on 902 MHz boxes, well 6 or 7 maybe. :^)=
If I look at the Classic Rover scores, which has larger numbers of
participants, and hence better statistics, it looks like there are
more QSOs made in the contest on 222 MHz than on 1296 MHz. You have to
go all the way down to the 15th place finisher before you find someone
with more QSOs on 1296 MHz than 222 MHz. So on the face of it, it
seems like choosing 1296 over 222 MHz may be a poor strategy. This
makes sense, as it is a lot cheaper to generate power on 222 MHz than
1296 MHz.
The rule change is not the end of the earth and may well level the
competition in the Limited Rover class. I suspect that the committee
did not really look at the UHF results too closely though. It will
require equipment investments by those of us who rove in that contest
if we want to be competitive. - Duffey
--
KK6MC
James Duffey
Cedar Crest NM
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