[Cwo] some initial reflections

[k6rb at baymoon.com]

I'm inclined to suggest we:

- change the date to third weekend in July (to avoid conflicts)
- leave everything else the same

Here's my thinking:

- there's going to be winners for the 2011 CWO, and trophies, etc. which
will be publicized
- word of mouth about how much fun it was will get around
- we will not have conflict with Russia and Japan, next time
- we will have more of a chance to promote it among our members
- the propagation may be better

If the turnout is similar to 2011, we can adjust the sessions back to 3
hours. I don't want to overreact to 2011. In 2012, we can make the team
competition more fierce by offering more than bragging rights.

The mini-CWTs took a while to get traction, so we have to be a little bit
patient with CWO.

Rob K6RB


> Rob (and Alan, with Don and others who gave birth to CWO), don't get
> swelled
> heads when I offer that you guys really have orchestrated a major new
> event
> that has met with remarkable success the first time out.  I do have a few
> minor observations, though.
>
>
>
> I sent an earlier message on some log reporting anomalies that hopefully
> Don
> can deal with.   They are minor.  Here are my other comments:
>
>
>
> 1.        The overall participation, especially for sessions 1 and 2, was
> remarkable considering each session was 4 hours.   Like Sweepstakes, there
> were a lot of big guns CQing for the last half hour with few answers.
>
> 2.       Given we have 850 or so active members it strikes me as somewhat
> surprising there weren't far more participants.  In the 3 sessions, the
> last
> of which I bagged after 90 minutes because I was sleepy and not getting
> enough QSO action to warrant staying up all night, I worked, respectively
> 158, 164 and 77 multipliers.   Take out non-members and assume most
> callsigns were repeats as among the sessions, we are talking at most 225
> or
> so members participating (or, rather, that I worked).  By any measure that
> is a minority of the club and to me surprisingly low.   But it was a lot
> better than the CWT events.  I think FOC does better for its equivalent,
> the
> Marathon, but it has a long history of the Marathon and even that
> participating is decreasing annually, I believe.  They have virtually no
> success with activity days, and their QSO parties (BWQP) are no marginally
> successful.
>
> 3.       My guess is that 3 hours is sufficient for a session.  But if
> next
> year sees an increase in participation it will appropriate to return to  4
> hours for 2013.
>
> 4.       Prevailing radio conditions make a particularly big difference in
> international contacts given most EU guys are using modest stations.
> Session 1 was my "sweet spot" but I would have thought session 2 to be the
> "main event."  It was not, perhaps because there was not great skip to
> Europe, even on 40 or 20.  So I am not sure sessions 1 or 2 should be
> changed other than shifting each by one hour, i.e.,  shorter at the
> beginning or end.  I would think 2100-2400 would be better than 2000-2300
> if
> it's 3 hours.  For session 1, 1200-1500 seems just fine.  Session 3 I am
> not
> sure I fully understand given it is very early for Europeans and we have
> so
> few Asian members.   Is there wisdom in trying to create skip equality
> given
> low participation by minority membership in Asia?  We need to think about
> session 3 a bit, I think.
>
> 5.       I did not see a soapbox block in the log reporting.  The big
> block
> was for log information but perhaps could have been used for soapbox
> comments.  I don't know and it didn't say anything about soapbox comments,
> unless I just missed it.   I think it's advisable to have soapbox comments
> posted in a list on the website or in Solid Copy once the log totals are
> available.  People like to see what they said, in print!
>
> 6.       RDA and Keyman were certainly intrusions (and we to them), and
> NAQP
> may have drawn some members away from CWO.  I also saw some CWops members
> active in an RTTY contest during the weekend.  Wasn't the same scheduling
> information available when the August dates were selected?  WA7BNM's site
> shows July 22 as a good choice, however!   I would think giving notice of
> it
> when results for 2011 CWO are announced makes good sense.
>
> 7.       I think next time we need to encourage guys to listen on
> 80/160/10
> on the half hour, where appropriate.
>
>
>
> Thanks for reading all this!
>
>
>
> Jim, N3JT
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> From: cwo-bounces at kkn.net [mailto:cwo-bounces at kkn.net] On Behalf Of Rob
> Sent: Sunday, August 21, 2011 10:46 AM
> To: cwo at kkn.net
> Subject: [Cwo] some initial reflections
>
>
>
> All told, I think CW OPEN was a success. Given all the factors beyond our
> control (RDA, JA "keyman," etc.), the first two sessions were well
> attended.
> Here are some things that need attention:
>
>
>
> - the date is not good (NAQP SSB and RDA)
>
> - the last session (unless there are a lot of JAs and EUs is a problem)
>
>
>
> First, I looked at the perpetual calendar on Bruce's website and the
> weekend
> of July 23 (or thereabouts) has virtual no conflicts of any kind. So, I
> would propose that next year we move it to that weekend, and publicize the
> change right away.
>
>
>
> Second, maybe if RDA and keyman were not an issue, we would have gotten
> more
> EU and JA players (I hope so). So, changing the schedule would solve that
> problem, too.
>
>
>
> Lastly, the 2000-2400Z session (session 2) should have been the
> "sweetspot"
> session in North America. If 20, 15 and 10 are all operative, even with
> only
> 200 players, a solid 10 meter opening would have minimized the dip when 15
> went "soft" but it was still too early for 40 to go "long." That is
> something, however, that we cannot control.
>
>
>
> I am open to suggestion about changing the starting times on any session;
> and open to suggestion about shortening the sessions from, say, 4 to 3
> hours. However, if we had sufficient participation, the 4-hour sessions
> seem
> like they should produce results.
>
>
>
> Anyway, introducing a new contest that has some significantly new
> structures, scoring, and the like is not easy and I think we all did a
> creditable job. I will write something up for Solid Copy for the next
> issue.
>
>
>
> Rob K6RB
>
>
>
>
>
>
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