Why can't contesting be both. A place for friends and novices to get
together and have a good time and have a chance to do well and feel like
you have a chance to win. How many people really have a chance to
really win? Very few. It used to be you could go down to the Caribbean
with a FD style setup and win. That is very very difficult now with the
Multi stations with 8 rigs, multiple 100 ft towers etc. I applaud their
dedication, time and money to build great stations but there is little
competition.
If golf if you participate in a tournament (contest) you are allowed to
get a handicap which while certainly not perfect is an attempt to level
the playing field so that you can feel like you have a shot. There are
always going to be talented people that most likely can win but in golf
anything is possible as everyone plays the exact same course on the same
day. In contesting we have a bunch of golf tournaments going on all on
separate courses and then we crown a winner when none of the courses are
the same.
The goal here is to attract new people. I applaud those that continue to
work on personal goals. You cannot sell that to new folks and to the
younger generations.
W0MU
On 5/10/2017 9:28 AM, Tony Osman wrote:
Gerry
I am enjoying this thread and listening to the various arguments. I
have participated in all entry classes in CQWW (with the exception of
QRP) and I have enjoyed them all. I do find that multi-single (when
keeping to the rules) is one entry where you can have other operators
manning the multiplier station who are guys newer to contesting and
could be intimidated by the abilities of others to run at high rates,
but know that they are fully participating by finding new mults. It
is a good opportunity to bring someone into the contesting game. Are
you going to win? probably not, but mentoring has its own winning....
I am in awe of the guys who can sustain very high rates (running
150-200 qs per hour as an AVERAGE!). They have a special talent and I
can only wonder at it - the same as I wonder at golfers who can shoot
a 64 on a course that I shoot 64 (on the back 9!). It is interesting
to see some M/S QSO totals that are almost as high as M/2 (within
10%). Participants in M/S can have advantages when a M/M station uses
its resources to supply many more multiplier operators, but I doubt if
this has anything like the same advantage that the geographical
advantage has - 3 point vs 2 point per QSO. The running station still
has to make a very large number of contacts and yes, if you have
multiple people of the same high skill level available, they are going
to be able to run faster for shorter periods of time than the 48hr
marathon, but that is just the nature of the team and the category.
However, none of this does not stop me from competing. My goal is
always to beat my personal best, in this I am competing solely against
me, the same station, the same antennas (mostly) but each time a year
older! I also enjoy team competition where I no longer have to try
and stay the full course and the camaraderie for the weekend is even
better than the actual contest (well - almost).
I also remember that this is not my livelihood but a hobby. So I will
be happy to have a beer with you and Yuri at Dayton too!
Tony
VE3RZ
On 5/10/2017 9:02 AM, Gerry Hull wrote:
Hi Yuri,
No offense taken.
Take the NASCAR analogy. Yes, I expect people to push the rules --
like
they do in car racing. When they found certain techniques were causing
completely out-of-bound results, they reigned in the rules.
My point of view is yes, an 8-station M/S certainly is advancing the
state
of the technology art -- and I have no problem with the people doing
it, in
fact I'm in awe from the technology perspective.. However, what is it
doing for contesting overall? Maybe I'm a bit too altruistic. If
the
three or four stations worldwide who use this technique dominate M/S for
many years to come, what have they proven? That they can win by
pushing
the rules to the absolute limit. There is inherently nothing wrong with
that -- that is part of what competition is.
What does it do to participation in the category is another question
completely.
I can argue the same point about remote: So far, in general, it have
proven a challenge to generate the same level of scores from a remote as
you can from being on location. As skills and technology improve, I
think
you will see this change. The ability to put rare multipliers on,
and, the
ability of contesters to come back into the fold (who are QRT in
covenant-restricted QTHs), I would argue, has huge benefit to all the in
the contest community. Just ask a lot of contesters in southern
California
or Florida.
The purpose of this reflector, hopefully, other than a bitch session,
is to
express ideas. Let's continue the discussion.
Yuri, we can talk about it more over a beer in Dayton...
73, Gerry W1VE
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