On Fri, 9 Jan 2004 at 07:34:32 -0600, Kenneth E. Harker wrote:
>All those different contest exchanges, too - the lack of consistency
>from contest to contest creates much confusion amongst contesters -
>I can't tell you how many times I've started to say "59 Texas" when
>I meant to say "59 Ken" or "59 4." I fail to see why we can not use
>the 40 zones defined by the CQ standard for all contests. It sure
>would be nice for all the logging programs to be able to to use common
>definitions to facilitate moving data between each other.
Great first step, Kenneth, but you could have taken the idea further. My
contesting software already knows you are in zone 4, so there is no point in
exchanging that information. Of course, the signal report is equally
meaningless. After we eliminate all that extraneous stuff, the ideal contest
exchange is:
You: ... WM5R Test
Me: VE3IAY
You: VE3IAY
Me: WM5R
You: Thanks WM5R Test
Since this is ideal, all contests should adopt it; anything else would be
less than optimal.
As for the rest of the rules: 1 point per QSO, because anything else gives
someone somewhere an unfair advantage. Ditto for multipliers, it's best to
do away with those entirely. Having different multipliers in different
contests does not meet contemporary standards of fairness and consistency.
It makes the software developer's job too difficult, as well as posing an
unnecessary burden on contesters' memories.
The proposed standard log format (date time band mode callsign) would
eliminate all unnecessary information and would be identical for all
contests, again simplifying the job of software developers.
Choice of contest weekend discriminates unfairly on the basis of religious
or national holidays, sports events, other family events, etc. We can
resolve this by having a contest every weekend. In order to avoid
unfairness, all contests should run for the same time period (48 hours) and
be open to all modes on all bands.
Entry categories would be single-op and multi-op. As for other rules about
number of transmitters, power limitations, use of packet: it's too hard to
enforce restrictions anyway, so why bother?
So there you have it: the ideal is a 48-hour all-mode all-band anything goes
call-sign exchange contest every weekend. What more could we ask for?
73,
Rich VE3IAY
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