Just to offer my two cents' worth....
The two things I really enjoy about WPX are:
1) Prefixes as multipliers....which kind of makes sense for a contest
supporting the WPX awards. At the very least, you hear many interesting
callsigns on the air, and it's fun to watch the score balloon as they
accumulate.
2) The general score structure. There is an incentive to try for the hard
contacts (low band intercontinental) opening the door to some need to
consider strategy if score optimization is a goal; but even non-DX contacts
are worth a point, which keeps some activity going when DX propagation
isn't wonderful. (Contrast to the ARRL and CQ DX contests which can get a
bit slow at times.)
I concur that the scoring system might not be fair, but life isn't fair.
I like my easy access to Europe from up here in 1-land (even with my being
a little pistol station), but that comes at the price of having a poor QTH
for competing in domestic or Asia-focused contests. And since I don't have
the power or antennas to compete with the big guns...that's OK. I just
like making contacts and seeing what kind of result I can generate given
what I have to work with, equipment and time-wise.
I'm intrigued by the idea of testing out a distance-based scoring scheme,
either as a side project working through published logs, or as a
side-contest.
Earlier in this thread, mention was made of the old days where points were
sometimes awarded based on a grid, and that such systems were dropped. I
assume one reason for that evolution was the challenges inherent in working
with such complexity in a paper-logging world; perhaps scoring grids might
be more workable given the shift to computer-based logging. The idea of a
score that reflects the relative difficulty of working a particular locale
(which is a reflection of distance, path, and population in the target
area) also has some appeal...perhaps more appeal than simple distance-based
scoring. I could support a side project/side contest here too.
But while it's interesting to consider alternate score-generation systems,
I would ask that the folks promoting such ideas not lose sight of the
essential natures of the contests they seek to tweak. WPX is a
"prefix-multiplier, everybody works everybody, but there's an incentive to
try for DX/low band contacts". CQWW is a DX/zone contest. ARRL DX is a
"US vs the world" contest. The differences between those natures and the
resulting differences in strategies play a role in making them interesting.
Don't go too far in straying from the essential nature of the contests,
or too far towards homogenizing the tests.
--
*Michael D. Adams* (N1EN)
Poquonock, Connecticut | mda@n1en.org
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