[CQ-Contest] NCJ Contest Tips Tricks & Techniques Topic

[Bill Coleman]

On 11/8/00 7:56 AM, Gary Sutcliffe at ums at nconnect.net wrote:

>A Contest Rating System. Should contesting have a rating system for
>participants as other activities such as chess have?  Should we have
>Masters and Grand Masters of Contesting?  If so, how should such a system
>be set up?
>
>Please reply directly by November 10. Be sure your call sign is in your 
>reply.
>
>Thanks for your support!

Gary,

Seems to me that Bill Fisher  had a system of sorts set 
up a few years ago, perhaps published in NCJ for a time. His method used 
a computation of placement within various contests in comparison with the 
overall winner.

One side-effect of this method is that those who participated in a large 
number of the rating contests were potentially higher-rated than those 
who had winning scores in a few contests, but were absent from the 
others. I believe Bill changed his system a few times to counteract this.

As a former average serious chess player (USCF rating: 1600), I can 
clearly see the benefits of a numerical rating system. In chess, the 
rating is computed using a rather simple algorithm based on the rating of 
your opponents, and the outcome of each game. (Newcomers are assumed 
rated 1200, those with fewer than 25 rated games are provisional and used 
a different algorithm)

In contesting, though, it is very hard to capture and neutralize all the 
variables. Geographic, propagation and station differences all contribute 
to differences in scoring. A great operator might produce a lower score 
because he's on the west coast in a DX contest, or he doesn't have the 
best station available. A mediocre operator at a superstation in the 
northeast is likely to outscore him. How does a rating system equalize 
those differences? Regional ratings might compesate for geography or 
propagation, but what compensation do we have for station differences? 

As for Grandmasters of contesting, seems anyone who has participated in 
WRTC can likely lay claim to that title. I recently introduced K4BAI to 
my wife as "one of the top-one hundred contest operators." I doubt anyone 
would argue that assertion, given his two-time participating in WRTC. So, 
we at least recognize great contest operators, even if we can't 
numerically determine their rankings.






Bill Coleman, AA4LR, PP-ASEL        Mail: aa4lr at arrl.net
Quote: "Not within a thousand years will man ever fly!"
            -- Wilbur Wright, 1901


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