[3830] ARRL 160 K9YC M/S HP

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                    ARRL 160-Meter Contest

Call: K9YC
Operator(s): K9YC + PACKET
Station: K9YC

Class: M/S HP
QTH: SCV
Operating Time (hrs): 31

Summary:
Total:  QSOs = 641  Sections = 73  Countries = 8  Total Score = 109,431

Club: Northern California Contest Club

Comments:

Conditions were not great, especially poor Friday, improving a bit around 0700Z
Sunday. As compared to years past, it was much more difficult to work the east
coast, EU was non-existent, and no Asians until Sunday morning. 100 fewer total
Qs, 8 fewer mults, score down by about 20%.  

I am one of many west coast operators who are seriously frustrated with east
coast operators who are simply deaf to the west. I strongly suspect that this
is a combination of three factors. 

1) The stations with good RX antennas are pointing them to EU to max out 
on points for this and most other contests. 

2) Many of these guys are burdened with relatively high noise levels. 

3) Too many guys have no RX antennas, either because they have no space or 
are too lazy, but they have amps and computers that call CQ endlessly 
wasting space on the band. 

It is no fun calling guys on the east coast who aren't listening to the west,
or to have our efforts negated by the vastly greater number of hams and country
points available on both sides of the Atlantic. The Boring Club has shown
there's a much better way to run a contest with their Stew Perry. Among other
things, points are based on distance and power level, and the stations on both
ends of a QRP QSO get credit for the more difficult contact that both of them
are responsible for completing. 

I am also convinced that it's time to modify the rules of some of our contests
so that stations in locations other than EU and the east coast of NA can be
competitive. When good operators sitting at stations like N6RO, K5RC, and N6TR
consistently place in the third tier, and lots of other ops with decent
stations are sitting on the sidelines because they can't be even close to
competitive, there's something seriously wrong with the rules. This will be the
third time I've won SCV in ARRL 160, only because stations like W0YK, K6XX,
N6TV, and W6YX either sat it out or spent only a few hours passing out Qs to
locals. 

Now that we have lots of computer power to make scoring a contest with fairer
and more complex rules practical, it's time for moldy fig sponsors like ARRL
and CQ to follow the Boring club's lead. 

73,

Jim K9YC


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