SECC
[Top] [All Lists]

[SECC] ARRL DX Contest and changes - some thoughts

Subject: [SECC] ARRL DX Contest and changes - some thoughts
From: dbmcalpine at earthlink.net (Dennis McAlpine)
Date: Thu, 23 Jun 2011 13:24:49 -0400
 

 I have operated from some big stations in the Northeast (W2PV, K2LE/1,
K1KI, K1ZM) and from down here in the South (NQ4I) and I would say that it
is extremely unlikely that a station from down here can beat one of the big
stations up North.  In fact, it is surprising that K3LR and K4JA did as well
as they have done.  The problem is that those big stations are just too much
closer to EU than we are.  They have several more hours a day of daylight to
EU than we do and they can hear the weaker level stations that we will never
hear.  NQ4I has a super station with some great antennas but you can't beat
the geography.  As long as the rules stay the way they are, I doubt the
outcome will change.  

When I operated from VT at K2LE/1, we could hear the guys east of us working
EU an hour before us and there was nothing we could do about it.  Imagine
how much earlier VY2Z can hear EU.   

But, I'm not sure that going to a distance based scoring system will make
that much difference.  The Northeast will stay have longer EU openings and
stronger signals.  The longer openings and the higher rates will probably
still give the NE the advantage unless some sort of multiplier is applied to
the distance.  Try and figure that one out.  It will be very interesting to
see the results of rescoring some of the top scores from NE and elsewhere to
see what the effect will be.  Let's wait and see what that shows before
jumping into one camp or the other.

BTW, has anyone thought about how the DX stations will react?  I would guess
that the Caribbean will no longer walk away with the ARRL DX top honors.
How will they feel?  Will all those guys who go to V$ or PJ7 pr wherever
stop going because they no longer have a chance for a big score?  If so,
what will that do to activity for us W/VEs?  I would be curious to hear from
N2NT, W2SC, W2GD, K4BAI and the others who make that trek to hear what they
think. 

Certainly there is one certainty if the rules are changed, i.e. the old
scores (or the new ones) will no longer mean anything compared to the new
scores.  Is that what we want?  Why not simply start a new contest using a
distance based scoring and see what happens and leave the ARRL DX Test as
is?.

73,

Dennis, K2SX

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: 
http://lists.contesting.com/pipermail/secc/attachments/20110623/2f890079/attachment.html
 
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: image/jpeg
Size: 2743 bytes
Desc: not available
Url : 
http://lists.contesting.com/pipermail/secc/attachments/20110623/2f890079/attachment.jpe
 

<Prev in Thread] Current Thread [Next in Thread>