[CQ-Contest] Distance Based scoring

[W2CE at aol.com]

In a message dated 8/26/99 04:46:02 PM Eastern Daylight Time, kq2m at mags.net 
writes:

>  1) Unique exchange which is a challenge to copy
>  2) Some idea of where in the country the station is that I am working
>  3) Curiousity as to the distance of the qso
>  4) Lots of mults.
>  5) A chance to "give birth" to a contest in part based on what I feel 
>     might be fun (as well as what others think) rather than what some
>     magazine or IARU society decides

 All very good points and worthy of being a new contest, but not a change to 
existing contests with their own formats.  I would equate the development of 
such a contest to the WPX where even guys in your own town can have enough 
different prefixes that you work the guy next door.  Working grids makes it 
easy for the little person to have a role in a contest.  Put himself in a 
rare grid and he's wanted the same as a new country in a DX contest.

International contests should stay at countries for mults.

National contests should base mults amongst their divisions, sections, 
states, whatever intenrally accepted divisions.

Even ARRL contests involving DX needs to remain state driven.

That doesn't block a group from sponsoring a grid based contest other than 
ARRL or CQ.  Neither is the sole authority in contesting.

I would enjoy grid contesting BUT mention one drawback.

It should not be a revision to an existing contest. For several years a group 
of VHF enthusiasts from Rochester, NY toured the Atlantic and Roanoke 
Divisions.  I became a part of things living in WV at the time as the sole WV 
contest resident.  We were the first to pass the 1,000 Q's mark, beat our own 
Division record twice, then gave up when equal performance could be done by 
working grids at higher numbers for the same effort.  There are no section 
<VS> grid records.  Try scoring where there are 5 to 8 grids in each section. 
Needless to say, the group never returned to challenge the record using grids.

Go for grids, just make it a NEW event.


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