[CQ-Contest] Re: The East Coast Contester

[John Warren]

Art N2AU wrote:

  The plain facts are that 99% of the time, when it comes to DX
  contests using the present rules, the East Coast Contester will
  prevail ....

Kevin WA8ZDT replied:

  Spoken like a true arrogant east-coaster ....

I think you missed Art's point Kevin. It's the rules that cause the
problem, not east coasters (except that east coasters typically defend
those present rules). The rules reward quantity (# qsos) too much, and
quality (multipliers) too little. The midwest can compete very effectively
on multipliers. Usually, we can work larger multipliers than the less
skilful people on the coasts, who rely more on brute force for qso
quantity.

That could be changed. There are at least two ways mathematically of
increasing the value of multipliers, and correspondingly decreasing the
importance of qso quantity. It is possible to devise a scoring system which
would come close to levelling the playing field across the USA - and
incidentally help other similar regions inside huge countries. However,
several arguments are usually made against that:
(1) some people like "running 'em" (In my mind, once you've worked
    one K1, you've worked 'em all. They all sound the same anyway).
(2) it would break the exact equivalence to past results, and
(3) the majority of dx contesters come from regions which almost
    always win under the present rules, so (naturally) they don't
    want change.

Asbestos suit on.

John, NT5C.




--
CQ-Contest on WWW:        http://www.contesting.com/_cq-contest/
Administrative requests:  cq-contest-REQUEST at contesting.com