We can look forward to "Stew Perry"....
Bob AA6VB
Sent from my iPhone
On Nov 29, 2012, at 3:54 PM, "Jim Brown" <jim@audiosystemsgroup.com> wrote:
> On 11/29/2012 3:15 PM, Herb Schoenbohm wrote:
>>
>>
>> Again this weekend the ARRL presents the worst and most unfair 160 meter
>> competition ever devised.
>
> If you think it's unfair from your QTH, try working it on the west coast.
> West coast contesters have grown VERY tired of participating in contests
> where very experienced contesters operating from very good stations have not
> even the slightest chance of being competitve because the scoring rules put
> us at a 10:1 disadvantage. When I moved from Chicago to Santa Cruz in 2006, I
> began building a station that would have been a super station if it was east
> of the Mississippi, and for several years pursued contesting seriously. Each
> year I entered 160M contests, each time I worked all states and added to my
> list of countires worked, and each time I had the top score in SCV, a section
> full of serious contesters. Not because I was that good, but because all
> those serious operators had no interest in a contest they would by playing
> with both hands tied behinds their backs. Think about it -- east coast
> stations run 100 EU stations, a distance of 4,000 miles or less, some more in
> AF
and get 60 multipliers. I run 100 JAs (5,500 miles) and a few VKs and ZLs
(6,000 - 8,000 miles) and get three multipliers. And maybe I find half dozen
more mults in the Pacific islands, UA0, and HL.
>
> The same thing happens in most major contests -- the guys with stations
> around the Atlantic seaboard have a great time, accumulate great scores, and
> acquire the (underserved) reputations of contesting "gods" ONLY because of
> where they live. And because they are contesting "gods," they dominate the
> councils and committees that set the rules for contests, fight like hell
> against any changes in the rules that might reduce that advantage, and go
> along with anything that accentuates it. The new Ontario multipliers are
> only one small example -- a far greater one is the extra multiplier in WRTC
> for HQ stations, which essentially doubles the east coast advantage by
> doubling the number of mults, mostly from EU countries. I've responded to
> 160M contests first by running 100W, and then after making WAS in a weekend,
> by operating QRP. I'm passing out the SCV multiplier only to those stations
> who really want to work the west coast, who have Beverages pointed this way,
> and stay up after
EU has gone to bed.
>
> So what it boils down to is that if you want us back in the game, you've got
> to work to change the scoring rules of contests so that we WANT to play.
> Contest rules are from the dark ages, when it had to be done with pencil and
> paper, so they had to be very simple. Thanks to the ease of computer logging
> and log checking, scoring rules could take many possible forms, anything from
> distance based scoring, or assigning multipliers to JA prefectures and VK
> states, to handicapping by ARRL section, state/province. The Stew Perry model
> is but one (pretty good) example. But if the east coast contest establishment
> insists on maintaining a status quo where only east coast stations are
> competitive, and where the rules don't make east coast stations even WANT to
> work the west coast enough to point their antennas in our direction, you're
> going to have to get used to playing with yourselves.
>
> 73, Jim K9YC
> _______________________________________________
> Topband reflector - topband@contesting.com
>
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