       
        Below you will find the results of the 2023 Maidenhead Mayhem March Sprint. Below the Results you will see any "Soapbox" comments we may have received. Finally below the "Soapbox", there is a thoughts & commentary from the Contest Director. Please read those Directors Comments, We are asking for suggestions and comments of what changes if any we should make to this contest. Remember we want this to be "YOUR" contest. Help us make it into what you want it to be! RESULTS
 WB9SBD:
I Did Phone Only to help in promoting this new contest. Made it much easier to let people know what it was all about. W1UE: Decided to make this a 100% Digital effort, despite the reduction of QSO pts for digital contacts. It makes it relatively easy to determine what multipliers are needed, as the grid is part of the normal exchange. All of the 20/15/10 QSOs are FT4; most of the 160/80 Qs are FT8, and 40M are mixed. There is very Little FT4 activity on 160/80, so I had to go to FT8 to get the multipliers there. In this contest, multipliers turn out to be the way to build the score the fastest. At the end of the contest, each mult was worth 807pts and each 2pt QSO (my average pts/QSO) was worth 245 points. All in all, a fun 4 hour sprint. I operated UTC 3/18 0000-0052, 1125-1210, 2151-2252, and on 3/19 operated 0407-0507 and 1152-1214. Dennis W1UE NN7SS: I looked in the first hour on 40m CW, which is where I thought I would find some participants. I spotted those I worked, though they didn't seem to be in the contest, but were willing to give me a grid. NN7SS(K6UFO) 40m: GXP 2-el at 72ft Flexradio 6600 at 5 watts Writelog software. Comments,
Thoughts, Suggestions, From the Contest Director.
As in the description, this contest has been in development for over
40+ years. Bouncing off thoughts of other contesters for years and
years and years. This contest was born from the desires of Contesters.
And it will continue to evolve as the contesting community desires. Be
sure to make your thoughts known! We want this contest to be ...
Once the site went on-line on Nov 22, 2022, I had only one person comment how they did not like the Old Novice Roundup Time format. I received dozens of comments every single day. Most were of how they LOVE all the parts of the contest. And comments like how a contest like this should have happened years if not decades ago! The Contest as well as the website Had little to no publicity at all other than the Contest Calendar, https://www.contestcalendar.com Yet between when the website went on line on November 22, 2022, and the week before the Contest start, March 10, 2023. There were over two thousand visits to the site. And half of the visitors, over a thousand of them, were serious enough about doing the contest that they downloaded the special loggers to do the contest! Nothing but Good was heard from the outside world. Then there was the Prizes! That was a very popular topic also. But with the prize sponsors ONLY!! Many Prize sponsors wondered why prizes were never offered in any other contest before! AND it was super popular with the three sponsors. When I contacted them, described what we wanted to do, They Immediately and without hesitation said Absolutely they want to donate to the Prize Package! In no time, In Like two days! The prize package was already over $1800.00 dollars worth of prizes! So I stopped looking for any more sponsors. BUT.... That did not stop others from contacting ME! Offering MORE stuff to add to the prizes! The Manufacturing world Loved this idea of Prizes. I was getting offers all the way up to the final week before the Start of the sprint. I told them to hang on and lets see how this sprint goes, and maybe we can add more for the main contest in July. CONTEST
STARTS!
I find a clear
place, 7180 and start to CQ. It is really slow going. No One is
Answering.
So I decide to post a "Self Spot"  While I finish with that for all the clusters to spread out to the world spot. I also do the web page one also. (ignore the date/time/freq, I did not save an image during the contest, so had to make one just now. 
Things are still really slow. But I am able to make 61
contacts.
As to help promote the contest I did Phone
So it will be a LOT easier to describe what the contest is, and where to go to learn more about it. What I
learned.
First thing, will need to do something about the FT-4 & FT-8 Contacts. I did not think ahead about them having a super advantage. Them just making regular type every day FT-X Contacts will work just fine in the contest. No trying to get people to contact you in a Strange New Contest, or having to explain what you need from the station calling for the exchange. Just making regular everyday type of FT-X Contacts gave them a huge pool of callers to work. The MAIDENHEAD MAYHEM Suffered BADLY from what I call the 10 Meters Syndrome. What you may ask is what I call The "TEN METERS SYNDROME" As an avid user and promoter of ten meter band use, especially during the low sunspot years. I find this happening ALL the time! Say you want to make some Phone Contacts. You tune from 28.3 to 28.5, and not a single signal is heard. Yeah the band must be closed down. But just for the heck of it, you go to 28.4 and throw out a long CQ. WOW! Like six stations are calling you! The Band is WIDE OPEN! But it sounded dead! Well, if everyone is only listening and no-one is transmitting, the band seems dead NO SIGNALS! A similar thing happened with the Mayhem! For the week after the contest was over, I got a couple dozen E-Mails every single day from people telling me how they wanted to do the Mayhem, And were all set with the loggers and everything and ready to go! But they couldn't find anyone to contact in the contest! They tell me how excited they were to participate in this new contest, but just couldn't find anyone to work! I asked them if they tried CQing? NOPE they ALL were just trying Search and Pounce. "TEN METERS SYNDROME"! If everyone is listening and no one is transmitting, well there is no CQ's out there to answer! Imagine if a few dozen even bothered to E-Mail me to make the comments about not finding anyone to contact in the contest, Imagine how many also tried, but never bothered to send an E-Mail about the lack of stations to contact! Those that did CQ, sure did not help themselves much. Or make it easier for others to find and work them. The EASY to grab 500 points for Spotting, Wow, The Web page Spotting page I only saw the whole weekend only two others than myself use it at all. And the "Self Spotting" on the Big cluster networks, WB9SBD was the only self spot I saw. Such a simple thing, takes ten seconds to do, gets ya 500 points BOOM! AND makes it easier for anyone looking to find you! Truly amazed that so few grabbed these easy points, and make it easier to find them! Now for the..  About 25% of the people that contacted be both before AND after the contest had concerns about the old "Novice Roundup" Time format. They LOVED the Format, don't get me wrong. And to be totally honest that was also one of my concerns. But at the same time of all the E-Mails, only one did not like the format. BUT.....
And there always is a "BUT" isn't there?
While concerned, there is History that shows a contest with this time format CAN work! And be extremely popular! The
original "NOVICE ROUNDUP" Check this out! Two examples...
 
These two stations participated in the original Novice
Roundup. Tim in
1976, and Linda in 1980.
It was just like the Mayhem, Nine Days of Contest operating "Window" BUT a MAXimum of 30 Hours of on the air time. In those days Novices were limited to CW ONLY. Also unlike the Mayhem, Every contact in this original Novice Roundup, One in the QSO MUST be a Novice! Higher Class Licensees, could ONLY work Novices! So the Novices did CQ and Search and Pounce. For the most part higher class stations did S&P, You could CQ but the contact had to be a Novice calling. Higher classes could NOT work other Higher classes. So the amount of stations possible to be worked was more or less based on How many Novices there were that were brave enough to try a contest! Remember a Novice in those days were truly only beginners! They were licensed at the most for less than two years! The License when you got it was good for only two years it was up-grade or go off the air. So here ya go beginners ONLY and ONLY CW, And every QSO had to have at least one Novice station in it! That sounds like there would not be a lot of activity doesn't it? How about this also! There was no spotting networks in those days. Every station worked was found by spinning the big knob on your radio. OH yeah PAPER LOGS and Dupe sheets! No computer logging or sending! Yet with all these handicaps they had compared to what we had with the Mayhem, Tim in 1976 Made 411 Contacts! 594 Stations sent in Logs. Hard to say how many participated and did not send in a log. Total number of QSO's the Novices made was almost 75 THOUSAND! Linda in 1980 Made 702 Contacts! 615 Stations sent in Logs. Also How many Participated and did not send in a Log. Total number of QSO's the Novices made was almost 120 THOUSAND! That is a LOT of contacts, with restrictions far worse than the Mayhem had. The Mayhem just needs to have more people even know that it exists. AND for those that do know it exists and want to compete in it, if you don't find anyone CQing in the contest, Be sure to start CQing yourself AND spot yourself in both places. the web page AND the major cluster system! So, As said before, I want this to be the "Peoples Contest" I want to hear your ideas, thought, comments, anything you would like to change, add, remove, etc. Let me Know. Joe WB9SBD |