golf handicaps are a bit less simplistic than described! each course is rated
each year based on scores of a large number of players, and assigned stroke and
"slope" numbers essentially attempting to equalize degree of difficulty of the
specific course...which is then further taken into account against each
player's personal 10 best out of last 20 scores. in spite of that, the system
is still unreliable for a variety of reasons and is most often not used in
competition except between players who frequent the same course. also, golf
handicaps are based on 90% of the score differential, not 100%, so they still
tend to favor, in the long run, the better player.
how would you "equalize" all the factors to compare your score vs the winner's?
take into account not only distance and propagation but a variety of other
factors that affect the outcome - e.g. - where did the winner, and you, operate
in each of the last 5 contests? fulltime efforts (what is fulltime???)?
equipment changes over time? etc etc etc.
each contest has point scoring rules that make a simple, but best effort, to
equalize scores, albeit none fully accomplish that objective. beyond that it
seems to me that most of the suggestions being made in this thread are biased
to direct an advantage towards a person/group that presently feels
disadvantaged.
my opinion: compare your score to the group of scores you believe most closely
approximates your own situation and adjudge how you "place" for yourself. it's
not for money! the superops can take their shot in WRTC every 4 years.
Hank KF2O
-----Original Message-----
From: w2lc <w2lc@twcny.rr.com>
To: cq-contest <cq-contest@contesting.com>
Sent: Thu, Jun 30, 2011 4:28 pm
Subject: [CQ-Contest] DX Contest Handicap Proposal
Read down a bit for the proposal.
W8JI has it correct, propagation is much more important than distance. And
eorge you are hilarious! Thanks.
LU5DX said: “FACT: Distance based scoring will also attract more and more
ntrants”, well no this is not a fact no one knows what will happen. In my
pinion distance based scoring will only drive the casual person away from the
ontest, due to the added complexity. But who knows.
But I think I understand the motivation, stations in the south have a longer
istance and also favorable propagation (due to the north south path) than
tations in the north but at the same distance. Therefore with distance based
coring you obtain a double advantage, a higher relative score to others while
ctually doing nothing to improve your QSO total or multipliers, and better
ropagation to boot!
Proposal Coming
But being open minded let me think out loud …
I suppose …… that since golf has a handicap system based on previous scores,
how
bout adopting that into contesting? Your contest handicap can be based on your
est 5 previous scores in the contest, and then your score adjustment is based
n normalizing that against the average score of the last 5 winners.
I estimate the average of my best 5 ARRL DX scores to be about 2,500,000 and
the
verage of the last 5 winning scores to be about what? 5,000,000? Nice even
umbers. Therefore my contesting handicap is 2,500,000 points. (average of the
ast 5 winning scores minus the average of my 5 best scores).
Therefore if I can beat my average best and the winner does not beat his
average
est, then I win based on handicap! Example: I score 2,600,000 and add a
andicap of 2,500,000 for a “net score” of 5,100,000. The winner scores
,900,000 with a “scratch” handicap (zero added points). Therefore I win the
ontest based on handicap.
The contest results can then print both the “gross scores” and “net scores”,
ross score being the actual unadjusted score, and the net score being the score
djusted by the handicap. You could have winners for both gross and net
ategories just like golf!
No distance based scoring needed and it takes into account propagation
ifferences too!
--
3 Scott W2LC
______________________________________________
Q-Contest mailing list
Q-Contest@contesting.com
ttp://lists.contesting.com/mailman/listinfo/cq-contest
_______________________________________________
CQ-Contest mailing list
CQ-Contest@contesting.com
http://lists.contesting.com/mailman/listinfo/cq-contest
|