[CQ-Contest] Is there more to contesting ?

[K3BU at aol.com]

In a message dated 11/11/2000 12:03:08 AM Eastern Standard Time, 
ei8ic at eircom.net writes:

> Although
>  the reports exchanged are meaningless, the fact that most operators will
>  work someone in a contest as soon as they CAN suggests that the logs are a
>  useful guide to actual conditions and so can be compared with
>  propagation-predictions to show what really happened. And couldn't the data
>  be useful to show ideal band-changing and operating schedules etc. ??


The propagation factor in contesting and operating is the big magnet and 
mystery to us. There is such a range of conditions and putting some computer 
model and rules on it is still very fuzzy. Propagation prediction programs 
are trying to make some sense of it but they are still far from being 
reasonably accurate. You add to it some high performance antennas, and the 
range extends by some hours beyond what computer says should be happening. 
    One way of correlating contest activity to propagation, would be to take 
the best computer models with predictions based on particular solar data, 
height of the layers (changes with solar cycle) and compare that with contest 
logs graded by the station's worth in dB over 100W and dipole "standard."
    "All" is needed is to someone get the logs and run it against the 
propagation predictions and see how they correlate and produce the nice maps 
showing QSOs for particular time and frequency. This could be added to the 
contest logging program, where you would input present solar data and use 
historical database to show potential openings (and turn the antennas in that 
direction, while CQ machine is doing its job :-)
    Making contest logs available for public viewing would be a giant step 
towards keeping contesters honest too. One could scrutinize the log of the 
competitor and see some potential violations (packet help, rubber clocking in 
M/S, etc.) Another idea to keep us honest.

73 Yuri


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