[CQ-Contest] 1 radio vs. 2 radios

[Ron Wetjen]

Hi Gang,

Been doing some thinking lately ... trying to gauge how "competitive" my
station and contest techniques are compared to others.  Just when I
think I'm doing "fairly" well ... I see some of the other scores posted,
and my "fairly" well turns to "is that all" I can do?  I think probably
one reason for the variations in scores is due to the 1 radio vs. 2
radio operations (of course, hardware and operator skill probably have
something to do with it too!).  But with a lot of folks going to 2
radios, and obviously having an advantage over the 1 radio crowd, I'm
thinking, how can I compare my score to the rest of the 1 radio
stations?  Since I only run 100 Watts into a tri-bander and a Center Fed
Zepp for all contests, I'm always happy to see either a power limit,
such as NAQP, or a high power and low power class.  At least I can get
some idea of how I do compared to others. But when I look at some other
scores in the same "low power" class, the QSO totals just blow me away
... and I would guess, a lot of this is due to using a 2nd radio, as I
can see where it can really be an advantage.  However, for those of us
who are antenna or real estate challenged, or just prefer to use one
radio, it's kind of hard to get an accurate picture of how well (or
poorly) we've done.

My thoughts are, is it possible or of any benefit to anyone else, other
than myself, to somehow indicate those stations who use 1 radio vs. 2??
No ... I'm not looking to create another category just for me, but I
would like to see why my scores "seem" to go up, but my standing in the
final scores go down. If it's because I'm using one radio and the other
guy is using 2, that would explain it, and I can deal with it!  But if
it's because I'm not competitive enough or slacking off, I'd like to
know that, so I can make improvements (short of more antennas and a
second radio!).  Any ideas how the 1 radio, little pistol crowd can tell
how we're doing?

Tnx & 73, Ron

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