Bill Fisher - W4AN wrote:
> K2AV wrote:
> > Nuthin, but nuthin will eliminate the advantage the East Coast has to
> > EU.
>
> BZZZZZT. Limiting your east coast runnable time to that equal to the
> west coast runnable time will eliminate the advantage. That is the
> entire point of the discussion which you some how missed.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Naw, didn't miss it at all. Just don't agree. This thread has been very
interesting reading and I appreciate the wide expression of opinion.
I stand by "Nuthin, but nuthin will eliminate the advantage the East
Coast has to EU." The advantage is in the distance, the propagation, the
length of open propagation, when DX goes to other bands to make points
with other parts of the world, etc. We are discussing how to *mitigate*
that advantage, are we not?
Obviously, certain stretches of the sunspot cycle reduce the advantage.
My very first exposure to ham radio was as a high school student in
Columbus, Ohio (1956, I think), at a friend's house, with his dad
working a station in Germany, using am, on ten meters, with a *window
screen* as an antenna. Translated forward into contesting, that's a QRP
feller running EU on ten meters for 3 or 4 hours. Next year, year after?
Mebbe I'l go low power and use the automatic ant tuner in the MP and
ignore all the band change/retune stuff.
But on average, the diff will be there. Obviously if the contest is so
limited that one can spend all the allowable time on the highest bands
at the peak of the sunspot cycle, the diff seems to go away. But at what
price?
Gator's '84 score (IMHO) stands out as one of the great performances of
all time. All the more because he did it *in spite of* the W1-3
advantage. He *oughta* be proud.
If one does something to mitigate the difference, it should hang on to
the essence of the contest and improve it generally. After reading all
the traffic on this subject, some on & some off the reflector, I submit
a refinement of my earlier proposal.
Remove the zero point contact. All contacts are at least one point. This
will remove the temptation to "zero log". With CQ's cross checking this
is a real problem: I log a new prefix station for me, he doesn't. I get
triple penalized.
Points for contact: Same zone or
country 1 point.
Else same continent or adjacent
zone 3 points
Else different
continent 5 points
This requires the zone in the exchange. Changed to serial plus zone.
MM's count as at large in whatever zone they are in. Must be one knot
off shore or in motion. Otherwise operate as portable in the country
anchored, if they can do so legally. Drop the automatic 59.
I think that the adjacent zone rule would give a slight advantage to EU
from middle USA, and make the east coast work harder. I think the same
advantage has been in force for western EU to USA all these years. Seems
that my EU contacts are about 1/2 zone 14 and 1/2 zones 15/16. That
would give East coast only 80 points relative to 100 for middle/west
coast for the same set of contacts. Not a huge difference, but a
leveling factor.
By-Band flat multipliers based on expected difficulty of the band for
that year. Multipliers need not be integers. Next year(?):
160 3
80 2.5
40 2
20 1
15 1
10 2
Could be different for SSB & CW given the widely separated dates. Go to
160 to work all the one point prefixes. See who can stand 160 cw after
the season is over and the qrn is up.
Still think by zone listings for the masses. Top Ten listings by
continent.
I always thought that the 30/36 rule for single operators was to allow
people to sleep and still max out in their category. When I was young
and really could stay up 48 hours in a row, I would think the rule
wimpy. Any more, I *have to* get some sleep. 24 hours would be even
nicer for that, but I think it would *radically* change the nature of
the test and force the singles to populate the high bands exclusively
when sunspots are high.
If one *did* institute the 24 hour rule, the graduated by-band change
would be necessary to give an incentive to be on the low bands at all,
with even steeper multipliers than I listed above.
What does the feller on HBO say... "That's just my opinion and I could
be wrong."
73 y'all.
--
Guy L. Olinger
Apex, NC, USA
k2av@qsl.net
'AV since '74, previously K4VDL, K3FKJ, W2HVA.
(Remember those? Get in touch!)
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