First of all, imagine that you love to operate contests, and really
enjoy winning.
Next, imagine operating the SS year after year from your station
in the continental US/VE. Imagine winning 130 million in the
Pennsylvania Lotto. You build up your station -- spend all the
money it takes. You buy just the right property, you buy 5
120-foot Big Bertha's and stack dozens of big monoband yagis.
You win the contest year after year from the continental US/VE.
Now, isn't your victory nothing but a hollow victory? I mean,
after all, you've spent more money in pursuit of victory than any
other ham in history, and it was sheer dumb luck that you could.
Seems to me that you're missing the point here. Everyone who
contests can take credit for his accomplishments, even if the
score is only a few hundred QRP contacts, and even if the
score is an outright victory from a fine station.
Frankly, it isn't all that easy to go to Puerto Rico or the Virgin
Islands and win the SS. If it was, then you'd see five or six
West Indies stations topping the SS top 10 every year. In
fact, to win SS from DX requires that you combine a fine
station and a fine operator. Anything less than a real fine
station won't cut it from DX in the SS.
If the WP3R station and operator combination were moved
to the Gulf Coast somewhere, the contact total would perhaps
be down a bit, but it looks to me as if it would still be good
for a victory (I assume here that someone doesn't fill the
void from Puerto Rico).
The reason WP3R dominates is that we're seeing a truly
quality combination of QTH, OP, and ANTENNAS, just
as we saw when a series of fine operators went to KP4RF
years ago. It's not because it's real easy from DX. You
have to remember the incident around 20 years ago when
a fine operator with about 10 recent SS first place finishes
(K7VPF/K7JA) went to a fine DX station (KV4FZ) that
was only slightly down from the standards of antenna
building that WP3R and KV4FZ have set (stuff like big
yagi stacks on all the important bands) only to come in
second behind W0TR with W0UA operating.
----- Original Message -----
From: <K5NZ@aol.com>
To: <cq-contest@contesting.com>
Sent: Friday, November 21, 2003 12:34 PM
Subject: [CQ-Contest] SS Question
> Can someone tell me why anyone would go outside the continental
US/VE year
> after year to win SS ? I truly don't understand it. I can see
going and doing
> it for the fun of being DX one time but every year? And if it is
for the
> winning aspect, the true competition is being first from continental
US/VE ? A
> win from DX is nothing but a hollow victory. Maybe I'm missing
something here?
>
> nz
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> The world's top contesters battle it out in Finland!
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