Great post Jim....but it should be pointed out that the ABC islands of
Aruba, Bonair and Curacao are much further West being at about 70
degrees WL compared to my QTH at 64.7 degrees in the *Eastern*
Caribbean Even though these entities are Caribbean islands along the SA
coast they get 10 points per Q in CQ contests compared to my 5 as you
mentioned. As the crow flies these 10 point entities are actually closer
to a good part of the US. This makes a big difference on 160 meters
where I must work twice as many stations to even be competitive. I have
been beating the drum on this issue for 40 years to the ruling junta to
no avail. This is also why the TBDC (The Stew) rules make so much
sense. Plus the completely eliminate the totally useless requirement of
sending 5NN back and forth. Just think about how much energy and tube
life you would be saving with a better exchange.
Herb Schoenbohm, KV4FZ
On 3/16/2015 2:06 PM, Jim Brown wrote:
On Mon,3/16/2015 6:09 AM, mstangelo@comcast.net wrote:
How would yo modify the rules to permit a level playing field?
There are many possible ways. N6TR has given us one excellent example
with the Stew Perry contest.
The major problem with the existing rules is the use of multipliers
and what constitutes a multiplier. Those contesters around the
Atlantic basin have access to far more country multipliers than those
living elsewhere. VK is an entire continent, but a single multiplier.
Living in CA, even when I'm able to catch EU openings lasting a few
hours each day on 20 and 15, more than half of my QSOs in a DX contest
are with JA, yielding a single multiplier. And then there's IARU,
where the multiplier advantage is doubled by making HQ stations a
multiplier.
I've seen two ideas floated to solve the multiplier issue. One is to
make all members of the European Union a single multiplier. That would
certainly give the east coast a taste of what it's like contesting
from the western half of the US! A different idea is to provide
multipliers for VK states and JA prefectures. Either of these ideas
move in the direction of providing an equivalent number of multipliers.
Another issue, especially with topband contesting, is the point value
of a QSO. The path from W6/w7/VE7 to VE1/VE9/VY2/W1/W2,W3/W4 is not
quite as long as from W1/W2/W3 to EU, but it is over land, not water,
so there is greater loss at the point of earth reflection. Yet a
transcontinental contact is worth only 40% of an EU contact in ARRL
160, and 20% in CQWW160, or a contact within the Carribbean, which is
even closer than W6/W7 for east coast stations. And then there's the
PJ4/P4 advantage in the CQ-sponsored contests, where nearly every Q is
worth 10 points because they're SA islands, as compared to 5 points
for NA islands a few hundred miles north!
Then there's the issue of population density, also quite important on
topband and 80M. From my Chicago city lot with 100W, a VERY mediocre
antenna and no RX antenna, I could work 4X as many US/VE stations as I
can from W6 with a comparable station. (I do have a far better station
here, so the QSO ratio is more like 2X).
Scoring rules also matter because they form operating strategies. If
EU and Caribbean Qs are worth 2.5X a W6/W7/VE7 Q, RX antennas will be
pointed NE, not W, and only the most serious ops will still be on the
air after EU sunrise. And I'd bet that many east coast stations have
no W RX antennas at all.
Now, the arguments advanced against making these sorts of changes are
mostly about "comparisons with prior years," and "it's a different
contest, choose those you want to operate." I'd love to hear a
justification for comparing a 1959 score with a 2014 score. In 1959,
we logged on paper, sent CW with bugs, kept paper dupe sheets. By the
mid-60s, many of us used electronic keyers. Then AEA introduced a
memory keyer, which I remember as very big deal -- I bought one as
soon as I saw it. And then there was computer logging. And clusters.
All of those are advances in technology, NOT in operator skill, nor in
the radio performance of a station. There is ZERO justification for
historical comparisons, except on a year by year basis, and even that
is likely to be as much due to propagation as the quality of the
station or the operator(s).
For contesting to be fun, we must have lots of stations to work. The
current rules discourage many from participating. I work 160M contests
ONLY to pick up countries, and to finish off QRP WAS. I haven't
seriously operated a 160M contest in five years, and I have three good
TX antennas and two full-wavelength reversible Beverages.
There was some logical basis for the existing rules in the days before
computers, when scores had to be computed with paper and pencil. But
this is 2015, and nearly any well defined scoring system can be
calculated on the fly in modern logging software.
Bottom line -- there ARE ways to make the playing field a lot more
interesting for a lot more stations. The only thing lacking is the
WILL to do it, and the opposition of those who benefit from their
geographical advantage under the current system.
73, Jim K9YC
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