Hi Terry, Long time, how are tyou doing?? I agree with you that the whole
contest scoring thing needs to be reviewed. As you say, VHF contesting does
not seem to be an ARRL priority! Not much (contest rules I mean) has changed
in the last 30 years and it probably should. I guess grid squares for
multipliers leveled the playing field a little and Rovers did as well. W2SZ
discoverd that a long time before there was a ROVER category as did the guys
in Kansas when WB0DRL was scoring so well with Dean, WA0TKJ out in the
"rover". But the rover class got a whole bunch of people "interested".. and
that helped everyone.
There still is the geographical location/population density factor, though.
We have to be careful trying to level the playing field too much. People in
Wyoming are gonna start whining about not being able to "compete"..! That is
why the scores are listed by division, so you are really only competing with
stations within your division and awards are given out accordingly. Well
they do put that "xxth overall" on the certificate too and list the "top
ten" or whatever in QST so i guess everyone wants to be in the top ten
overall.... But that's not the point. Stations in the less favorable
geographic locations are not going to score as well. That's just the way it
is. In the end we are all just competing with ourselves, trying to do better
than last year, or heck, just trying to have fun making the station work,
work new grids when a bunch of stations are on, etc. It is very frustrating
at K1WHS Unlimited Multiop in Maine to try to compete with W2SZ and K8GP. We
really have a killer station, but everything being the same, there's NO WAY
we can compete. There's a whole lot of OCEAN out there to the east, (and not
much more to the North!)!!! We do not want a rules change that will make our
score closer to SZ or GP. How could that be?? Then what about a rules change
for stations with really small antennas?? How about a rules change for
stations that cannot operate the whole contest period? How about a category
for FM only, or, I don't know, a class for really old gear that doesn't work
very well... hah!
There comes a point where you have a separate category for every station and
level the playing field so every one gets the same score and a first place
award. It IS a competition and someone HAS TO to win. It's probably going to
be the station in the east (that has dumped a lot of time and effort into
his station), but the fact that it is POSSIBLE for a station in the midwest
or west to win in June (6M factor) or a station in Calif to win (with the
population density factor), makes it exciting. Plus as far as i remember,
WA8WZG still has some overall records from Northern Ohio... (of course that
ain't Wyoming!!) At K1WHS we know we have little chance of beating you guys
on the "Knob", but it's fun to try and there are small victories like more
grids on 1296 or something... But I'll repeat, we really don't expect the
rules to be changed so we can win.. I guess I just plain have a problem with
TOO many entry categories. I can see it getting to a point where every
station has it's own category (Limited Multiop, portable, Medium Power, East
coast, etc etc..)
As far as increased QSO points for the higher bands. I agree this needs to
be looked at as well. There's a lot of new gear out there that makes it easy
to get on. But I think the argument that the increased points adds incentive
for stations to get on a new band (and we DO want to increase activity on
the higher bands) is still valid. Yes, you can buy a ready made rig for 1296
or heck even for 47GHz but it is still tricky (relatively speaking) to get
it going and actually work someone with it. Just look at the qso totals and
grid totals on the higher bands and you will see. These totals would
probably be less if there wasn't the pooint incentive. Now having double
point value for 220 and 432, I don't know.. so I agree the whole thing needs
to be looked at. And I wonder if it changes the ultimate result anyway, You
don't see anyone entering the limited multi category with JUST
903,1296,2304,3456, right? So it must be harder to score there EVEN with the
increased Q points.
So I'm rambling. Just wanted to voice some of the stuff *I* have been
thinking about!! So now I guess we've opened up a can of worms, but as long
as Dan at ARRL reads this, it is probably useful.
Bill, K1DY (exW3HQT)
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