Hi Bill,
Yes, you qualify as East Coast, but when people are generalizing, they are
thinking about Virginia and North of there. Really you are Southeast not
East coast. (To us frozen Northerners you are "Caribbean" HI! )
More to the point, in this contest, FL stations, especially with the
quality of station that you have, have a STAGGERING advantage compared to
the
North East and especially New England. And the West Coast guys have an
advantage over you most years. US demographics make it so.
I can't think of any contest where the inequity is greater between
West/South and the Northeast than in NAQP SSB, except for CW DX contests
in particular and DX contests in general, where the advantages are reversed
in favor of the North and East.
Having said that, a station in FL CAN win both a DX contest and a
Stateside contest. It is a virtual certainly though that a West Coast
station can
not win a CW DX contest and a North East station can not win an SSB
Stateside
contest .
Your comparison is not a good win if you are trying to make the point that
everyone can win. They can not. Unless the rules are changed or
California falls into the sea, it is likely to remain this way and the West
Coast
will dominate.
Having said that, I don't have any issue with NAQP as it is. Yes, it
might be nice to have a chance to win from New England if the rules or point
weighting was different, but I don't operate contests to win, I operate
just to have fun and NAQP is a very fun contest the way it is.
I wish that I had the time to get on for NAQP, Sprint, 10 Meter, WAE and
many of the other very worthwhile and challenging contests. As it is
I am down to two or three contests a year with serious efforts due to
business
and family obligations.
.
Maybe someday when I retire? :-)
73
Bob KQ2M
.
---------------------------------------------------------------
The world's top contesters battle it out in Finland!
THE OFFICIAL FILM of WRTC 2002 now on professional DVD and VHS!
http://home1.pacific.net.sg/~jamesb/
---------------------------------------------------------------
_______________________________________________
CQ-Contest mailing list
CQ-Contest@contesting.com
http://lists.contesting.com/mailman/listinfo/cq-contest
|