Read down a bit for the proposal.
W8JI has it correct, propagation is much more important than distance. And
George you are hilarious! Thanks.
LU5DX said: “FACT: Distance based scoring will also attract more and more
entrants”, well no this is not a fact no one knows what will happen. In my
opinion distance based scoring will only drive the casual person away from the
contest, due to the added complexity. But who knows.
But I think I understand the motivation, stations in the south have a longer
distance and also favorable propagation (due to the north south path) than
stations in the north but at the same distance. Therefore with distance based
scoring you obtain a double advantage, a higher relative score to others while
actually doing nothing to improve your QSO total or multipliers, and better
propagation to boot!
Proposal Coming
But being open minded let me think out loud …
I suppose …… that since golf has a handicap system based on previous scores,
how about adopting that into contesting? Your contest handicap can be based on
your best 5 previous scores in the contest, and then your score adjustment is
based on normalizing that against the average score of the last 5 winners.
I estimate the average of my best 5 ARRL DX scores to be about 2,500,000 and
the average of the last 5 winning scores to be about what? 5,000,000? Nice
even numbers. Therefore my contesting handicap is 2,500,000 points. (average
of the last 5 winning scores minus the average of my 5 best scores).
Therefore if I can beat my average best and the winner does not beat his
average best, then I win based on handicap! Example: I score 2,600,000 and add
a handicap of 2,500,000 for a “net score” of 5,100,000. The winner scores
4,900,000 with a “scratch” handicap (zero added points). Therefore I win the
contest based on handicap.
The contest results can then print both the “gross scores” and “net scores”,
gross score being the actual unadjusted score, and the net score being the
score adjusted by the handicap. You could have winners for both gross and net
categories just like golf!
No distance based scoring needed and it takes into account propagation
differences too!
--
73 Scott W2LC
_______________________________________________
CQ-Contest mailing list
CQ-Contest@contesting.com
http://lists.contesting.com/mailman/listinfo/cq-contest
|