Method
This is a very simple analysis of the Unlimited Club category for the
November Swwepstakes for the last four years (these results are available
from the ARRL web site, I'm too lazy to go dig out the older issues).
The metric I choose to look at is the average club score, that is, the
total club score divided by the number of entries for each club.
| Name | Club Score | #entries | Avg. score |
| PVRC | 12,778,736 | 154 | 82,979 |
| NCCC | 10,923,976 | 115 | 94,991 |
| SCCC | 6,681810 | 51 | 131,016 |
| YCCC | 6,181,914 | 90 | 68,688 |
| SMC | 5,903,850 | 70 | 84,340 |
| Name | Club Score | #entries | Avg. Score |
| PVRC | 11,953,728 | 149 | 80,226 |
| NCCC | 9,742,508 | 103 | 94,587 |
| SMC | 6,624,648 | 76 | 87,166 |
| YCCC | 5,554,448 | 82 | 67,737 |
| MWA | 4,924,488 | 65 | 75,761 |
| Name | Club Score | #entries | Avg. Score |
| NCCC | 11,713,328 | 119 | 98,431 |
| PVRC | 11,611,242 | 139 | 83,534 |
| YCCC | 6,421,482 | 79 | 81,284 |
| MWA | 5,052,038 | 63 | 80,191 |
| FRC | 2,756,184 | 34 | 81,064 |
| *SMC | 5,093,584 | 48 | 106,116 |
| Name | Club Score | #entries | Avg. Score |
| SMC | 14,552,734 | 211 | 68,970 |
| NCCC | 14,152,580 | 123 | 115,061 |
| PVRC | 12,213,356 | 146 | 83,653 |
| YCCC | 6,672,154 | 90 | 74,135 |
| MWA | 5,832,208 | 69 | 84,524 |
Abbreviations: PVRC - Potomac Valley Radio Club NCCC - Northern
California Contest Club SCCC - Southern California Contest
Club
YCCC - Yankee Clipper Contest Club SMC - Society of Midwest Contesters
FRC - Frankford Radio Club MWA - Minnesota Wireless Association
Analysis
Looking at the average club score, there is generally no significant changes from year to year. PVRC averages about 83k per entry. NCCC has seen a increase in their average club score over the last several years, and they have a higher average club score than PVRC. In fact, NCCC typically has the highest club average in the Unlimited category. I think some of NCCC's increase in average score can be attributed to the peak of the sunspot cycle, where they can maintain nice runs on 10m and 15m that are more productive than what we on the east coast can usually obtain. If correct, this advantage will decline with the sunspots.
SMC has typically had a club average comparable to PVRC, with the exception
of 1999, when they were in the Medium club category, where their average
exceeded even NCCC. SMC's win in 2000 came as a result of the massive
number of entries they generated. These entries comprised mostly
modest scores, as evidenced by the significant decrease in their average
club score (~85k average to 69k).
Conclusion
The Unlimited Club competition, like Sweepstakes itself, is a numbers game. The general trend is that average club scores don't change significantly from year-to-year. Hence the key is the number of entries a club can generate. Clubs like FRC and YCCC could be competitive in the Unlimited Club category if they could rally their troops to turn out in large numbers. SMC's achievement in 2000 is quite impressive, if no other reason than that they were able to increase the number of their entries so significantly in so short a time period.
The key to PVRC capturing the SS throne again is to simply increase
the number of entries we generate. In some way we must motivate as
many of our members to operate SS, at whatever level they are capable of,
preferably on both modes, and send in their entries. This is truly
a situation where lots of smaller scores are better than a few big scores.
The question is how to motivate everyone.
Page created by N4GU 06/10/01