Terry:
Thanks for your comments, and good question. There was a lot of discussion on
the pros and cons of band weighting in dx events (and many other
controversial areas, too!). The general idea is to use band weights instead of
the current QSO points per band. This aligns with EU, VK, and ZL experience on
multi-band distance events.
We ran five different simulations involving logs from recent VHF contests, the
largest being 40 logs or so collected from the 2009 June VHF QSO Party. Our
simulations showed that for the exact same QSO's, the lower bands of 6 and 2
had a much greater effect on total scores with distance methods than with the
current rules. This was true with or without any Es on 6 or enhanced tropo on
2. Basically, the lower bands took on far greater importance in a distance
event. In order to bring the percentages of contribution of each band back
to a similar range as with the current rules, a band multiplier was
necessary. Even with a gradually increasing band multiplier, the lower bands
still had somewhat more importance or contribution to distance scores than they
do under the current system.
There was concern expressed along the same lines as your thoughts. However,
with distance scoring being additive by distance only, it was felt that the
multiplicative nature of the current system (QSO points * grids) would at least
be eliminated. Several members of the working group believed that it is the
multiplicative nature of the current rules that provides the real advantage to
the grid seekers. With only an additive system in place, it all comes down to
the quest for long haul contacts. Nothing else matters, in fact, so a grid
dance would only be useful at long range. Pack operations would have to spread
out considerably to do well in a distance system, and that probably is a good
thing to see develop. I suspect that packs would still exist with a dx system,
just possibly evolve into a coordinated effort of portables to work each other
across valleys and mountains. Something like what already occurs in the 10G, so
it is not a
big stretch to imagine quasi-clubs or corridated teams running multiple
portable operations at long distances on all bands up thru 10G. More analysis
is certainly warranted in this area before anything is hatched in a live
test.
We also thought about work effort in distances achieved. Without a band mult,
a 1,000 km QSO on 2 meters would be worth the same distance points (i.e. 1,000
points) as a 1,000 km QSO on 432 or 1.2G. We wanted a reward for working the
long distances on the higher bands, so that a 1,000 km on 432, 1.2G, etc woudl
be worth more than the same distance on 6 or 2. We quibbled among ourselves as
to relative weights, but decided to at least put something out there for
further study and experimentation. The entire VHF community could then decide
from a policy perspective how much more of a "work effort" reward should be
given to the upper bands, if at all. Give too little, and the lower bands
dominate. Give too much, and the microwaves then generate ridiculous amounts of
points. Weighting becomes a balancing act to pull off right.
The simulations maintained at the yahoo user's group has many more statistical
details on all of this. The 2009 Report goes into extensive discussion on the
rationale for each of the nine recommendations, as well as constituting the
"minutes" of our deliberations. Please feel free to join the group and look at
the Report.
Since the initial message had bad word processing formatting, here are the
links again:
http://www.w9smc.com/SMC%20VHF/DistanceScoring2009Report.pdf
for the report, and
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/VHFDistanceScoring/
for the yahoo user's group.
Tnx so much for your interest.
Kevin
W9GKA
________________________________
From: "w8zn@comcast.net" <w8zn@comcast.net>
To: kevin kaufhold <kkaufhold@yahoo.com>
Cc: vhfcontesting@contesting.com; vhf@w6yx.stanford.edu
Sent: Monday, September 28, 2009 2:04:53 PM
Subject: Re: [VHF] Announcing the VHF Distance Scoring 2009 Report
Hi Kevin and the working group.
I applaud your group and wish you the very best luck. This is a step in the
right direction to equalize the scoring and help put an end to some of the pack
roving that helps no one else but the participants, once it is no longer
profitable to just work at grid corners, it will probably go away.
I do have one comment about item 4B, a weighted score for upper bands. Why
isn't it enough that another band yields another contact and distance mult?
Some time ago when a microwave station was entirely built from surplus or home
brew design, I would agree that it was worth more points. But with DEM and
DB6NT offering off the shelf ready built systems, these bands don't really
offer much more challenge than fighting QRM on 144.200. There is a small amount
of extra work pointing a dish that doesn't exist with a 3 element 6m beam but
if the signal is there, you work it and in some cases, I've found a 1w signal
on 10 GHz is EASIER to work than a 100w signal on 6m. As evident in most of the
ARRL contests, a station that maximizes their microwaves Q's will almost always
dominate even if they don't have a decent lower 4 band score, this seems
counter to increase activity. In HF, you don't get extra points for a 160m or
10m contact, which are much harder than
a 20m Q, VHF and above should be the same.
Thanks again for your fine efforts,
Terry
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