But Tree, why is it bad?
The QSOs still have to be made. The exchanges have to be sent and
received correctly. Just because one's friends get on to give him,
but no one else, a QSO, doesn't necessarily make it bad thing. I can
see in WRTC where the intent was to keep things very even between the
operators. but that is a very specialized contest. In a contest such
as Sweepstakes, where getting QSOs from non-participants has long
been promoted, it just doesn't make sense to eliminate this activity.
By giving the operator a QSO, his friends had to learn what to send
and receive for the QSO to be valid. Or he had to take the time, in
the contest, to teach them. This is bad?
By the same view we should outlaw QSOs between contest club members.
An argument could be made that since these QSOs result in double
points for the club competition, it is unfair to competing clubs. Of
course those clubs benefit from the same rule and QSOs between their
own members. So perhaps its not such a bad thing since it promotes
club growth and participation.
Getting folks on for contests, whether it be friends or casual ops,
educates others about contesting and what is needed to participate.
Perhaps the one fellow that I spend time talking into a QSO on _this_
contest might be a full-blown participant in the next contest. At the
least he knows a bit more about contesting and maybe why I am
participating.
Contest isn't just for the top stations, it is for everyone in the
contest, whether they send in a log or not. Those of us at the bottom
end of the results list compete against our own scores or those of
friends. It is infuriating to have a QSO removed that we worked so
hard to get, just because no one else got that station. We took the
initiative to go after the casual op, we should be rewarded, not
punished for it. And yes, I can point to several instances over the
last few years where I have had perfectly good QSOs removed. Even
though I'm not a top station doesn't mean that my score doesn't
count, too.
We are supposed to be having fun in contests. There needs to be a
place for the super-competitive stations as well as the rest of us
who are out to have fun and outdo our previous best. The "uniques"
discussion is just one example. Others include scoring problems where
a station is penalized for mistakes made by the OTHER station
(sending the wrong exchange, etc). if we are going to be really
picky, then we need facilities to determine these problems and
penalize the ops who created them, and not those of us who suffered
from them. Until that happens and scoring really becomes fair, then
lets back off of the heavy penalties.
OK, off my soapbox. Thanks again, Tree, for all your hard work. We do
appreciate it very much!
On Jul 24, 2006, at 10:18 AM, Tree wrote:
>
> Interesting debate about the uniques - but I would like to
> encourage people
> to think about "the other side of the equation".
>
> When I see comments like this:
>
>> Having lost the Atlantic Division in SS a couple of years ago by a
>> single QSO, I do firmly believe every QSO matters.
>
> I feel like the person is looking at the situation with blinders on.
>
> In the case when uniques are removed from your log - you need to
> understand
> they are also removed from everyone's log.
>
> Let's say in this situation where you lost the Atlantic Division by
> ONE
> QSO, let's say the guy who beat you has QSOs in his log from 57
> members
> of his local club that didn't work anyone else in the contest. True,
> maybe these people all actually did get on the air and just work
> one guy,
> but my experience tells me it is more likely that a few people got
> on the
> air and "helped out".
>
> Would you want to lose a contest by one QSO in this situation?
>
> If you look at the WRTC report files, you can see the impact this
> had on the
> "normal" stations and the impact it had on the others. Here are
> the unique
> percentages for five of the top claimed scores:
>
> Call Unique Percentage
> PT5M 0.6%
> PW5C 0.5%
> PT5L 10.0%
> PW5Y 0.6%
> PW5X 0.6%
>
> So - if we removed uniques from these logs, normal stations will
> lose the
> same 0.5 or 0.6% of their contacts. Is that such a high price to
> pay for
> "protection" from a guy reading a list of callsigns to someone else?
>
> While loud stations do tend to work more uniques - in a world wide
> contest,
> a loud station tends to work into areas where there are other
> stations that
> work the same stations. For example, while K7RAT on the west coast
> might be
> loud enough to work a UN5 station on 80 meters, that same UN5
> station will
> show up in lots of logs from eastern Europe. Unless a station only
> makes
> two or three QSOs in a contest, it is really hard for them not to
> show up
> in two logs that are submitted.
>
> After looking at this type of data for 20 some odd years, I
> honestly feel
> there is enough abuse out there that contest results will be more
> fair with
> a rule like this. However, I also realize that there is enough
> emotion
> associated with it - that it will probably never happen. Maybe
> someday,
> with a few more case studies like this, we can come up with a better
> solution.
>
> Think about "the other guy's log" when you lose by one QSO and
> wonder how
> fair the competition was. Would it be fairer with this rule? Is the
> absolute score more important than the correct finish order?
>
> 73 Tree N6TR
> tree@kkn.net
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-Jack Brindle, W6FB
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