Gerrymandering, which is the practice of drawing district lines to benefit a
political party, has been around for hundreds of years. It is not new thing
and it is not done to make things fair for everyone.
I think we all know that contesting is not fair and there is likely no way
to make it that way. If you re-zoned by time zones, Indianna would be in
the same zone as Maine yet they have very different propagation. I am in
North Carolina (zone 5) and I often cannot hear the stations that the W1's
(also zone 5) are working. More regional score grouping and awards like
Sweepstakes does would show how you're doing against other stations in your
area.
John KK9A/4
Barry W2UP wrote
Since gerrymandering has been a thing in the US lately, perhaps it should
apply to the CQ zone map as well.
Consider the primary US zones, 3, 4, and 5. Zone 5 is roughly 500 miles
wide. Zone 4 is roughly 1600 miles wide, and zone 3 is about 1000 miles
wide. Is it fair that OH and CO are in the same zone? Ohio's EU opening,
while not quite as favorable, is much more like that of the eastern
seaboard than OH vs CO (I've operated CQWW from both states.) Drastically
different DX condx from one side to the other. Perhaps the zones should be
realigned as follows:
zone 5 - eastern time zone.
zone 4 - central time zone.
zone 3 - pacific and mountain time zones.
While I haven't looked at the rest of the world, consider one example -
zone 15. Is it fair that the OH's and 9A's are in the same zone,
considering the vastly different propagation (auroral zone and
dramatically shorter daylight hours for OH's during WW)? Perhaps zone 40
should be extended east, way up north.
Let the floodgates open.
Barry W2UP
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