Ken,
WELL SAID.
The problem with all contests (HF, VHF, etc) is simple: Location. There's
always someone in a better location than you.
1) HF contesters in New England have a 45 minute - 1 hour advantage into
Europe over WNY. At rates of 150/hr, that can be the difference between win
and lose. To fix that, I either need to alter the laws of physics, or move
to New England.
2) VHF contesters in New England have Boston, Hartford, Albany, NYC, Philly
and MDC in troposcatter range. How many VHFers are located in this region
alone? LOTS, as we know. Many with huge numbers of bands. From WNY, I've got
Toronto, Rochester, Cleveland and maybe Detroit on a good day. Far less VHF+
action in these places. In order to fix this, I either have to do something
locally about it, or move.
That's the summary as I see it. Is it really different from this?
If either W2SZ or K8GP (hypothetically) moved to Nebraska for a contest, do
you really think they'd score as well? With all else remaining equal, the
answer is no. If I moved to the top of Mt. Greylock for a contest, do you
think I'd stand a chance against someone like K1TEO? MAYBE. That all depends
on my ability, equipment and persistence. At least it diminishes my location
disadvantage somewhat.
A winning score involves making the most QSOs, by the most multipliers.
Maybe that's the starting point for examining our contesting goals. IS that
the most important thing?
-Mark, K2AXX
(and BTW, I overreacted a bit to the original post by Kevin. Sorry 'bout
that. Too much caffeine...)
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Kenneth E. Harker [mailto:kharker@cs.utexas.edu]
> Sent: Wednesday, April 30, 2003 4:18 PM
> To: VHF Contesting
> Subject: Re: [VHFcontesting] VHF Contest Rules Revisions - Part III
>
>
> On Wed, Apr 30, 2003 at 08:05:15PM +0000, Bill Olson wrote:
> > Hi Ken, Whew! Even if I agreed with you, which I don't, you
> don't answer my
> > final question. How do you enforce such a rule (rule to
> eliminate "captive"
> > rovers or so-called "manufactured" or good buddy QSO's)?
> Are you saying I
> > cannot *work who I want to* in the contest?? Or that I
> *can only go roving
> > on a route that will result in my best score*??? That
> really IS silly!
>
> I don't know that I have the right answer. I think a lot of
> these issues
> haven't really received as much attention as they deserve
> yet, which is
> why it's good that they have come up.
>
> A good place to start is to get people discussing contesting
> ethics and
> what kind of competitions we really want to have.
>
> --
> --------------------------------------------------------------
> --------------
> Kenneth E. Harker "Vox Clamantis in Deserto"
> kharker@cs.utexas.edu
> University of Texas at Austin Amateur Radio
> Callsign: WM5R
> Department of the Computer Sciences Central Texas DX
> & Contest Club
> Taylor Hall TAY 2.124 Maintainer of
> Linux on Laptops
> Austin, TX 78712-1188 USA
> http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/kharker/
> --------------------------------------------------------------
> --------------
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