Interesting thoughts Al! I think the CQ WW "overlays" were designed to do just
what you say at a coarse level. Taking it to the next level, informally via a
database seems very interesting. I'd love to see someone take that on. Not
sure if I could host the bandwidth...
73,
Drew K3PA
-----Original message-----
From:Alfred Frugoli <ke1fo@arrl.net>
Sent:Tue 11-10-2015 12:17 pm
Subject:Re: [CQ-Contest] Leveling the playing field
To:Drew Vonada-Smith <drew@whisperingwoods.org>;
CC:Kelly Taylor <ve4xt@mymts.net>; Contesting Reflector
<cq-contest@contesting.com>;
Drew, K3PA said:
Beyond that, most competition in most sports for most of us is within your own
sphere of activity. I will never win CQ WW for many reasons, only one of which
is because I'm not the best operator. I don’t expect the rules to equalize the
fact that I have one tower with a 2-el yagi, or that I am in Kansas. I know
what my achievements with respect to others in similar circumstance. I have
fun, and set my own idea of achievement.
I've long thought that being able to identify other "stations like mine" to
compare contest scores would be wonderful. For a while the World Contest
Station Database was maintained by Pete Smith,
N4ZR(http://www.conteststations.com/ <http://www.conteststations.com/> -
currently suspended). Stations weren't categorized at all, but one could
browse through and see the hardware a given station was using. When/if that
resource is resurrected it would be great if stations were somehow categorized
(i.e. little pistol, single tower, multiple towers, monobanders on all bands,
etc.). Some definitions would need to be developed so station owners would
know how to categorize their station - and that's where the devil lies - what
are the metrics used to compare stations. Contest results could be merged with
this database so you could look at scores of all "little pistol" stations that
operated SOAB high power assisted from the northeast United States - for
example.
Or, once definitions were developed, this "station category" could be added to
cabrillo files and this type of filtering could be facilitated directly in the
sponsors contest results (if they allow access to the results database
online).
To be clear, I'm not suggesting more categories for certificates, plaques, etc
from the contest sponsors - I'm suggesting a way to compare yourself to other
contesters, thus allowing us to develop our skills and stations relative to
other contesters who operate similar stations.
73 de Al, KE1FO
K3 #3055
K3 #4094
-----
Check out my Amateur Radio Contesting blog at ke1fo.wordpress.com
<http://ke1fo.wordpress.com> .
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