[CQ-Contest] Re: penalty

[Jimk8mr at aol.com]

In a message dated 9/7/00 12:22:23 PM Eastern Daylight Time, 
w2up at mindspring.com writes:

>  But, to remove 3 QSOs per busted call is fair (though we 
>  may not like it) because the rule applies to all. 


The rule applies to all, but doesn't affect all equally.

If the bulk of your qsos are relatively short distances and strong signals,  
with callers who are not obsessed with working you and therefore maintain 
some degree of good behavior,  you stand a fairly good chance of getting 
correct callsigns into your log.

If you're 8000 miles away, operating with from a scarce location, working 
into a pileup that knows that it's now or never and therefore won't shut up, 
with maybe a dash of polar flutter thrown in, getting a correct callsign, or 
even asking for a fill on one, gets to be quite a bit tougher.

Which is all a part of contest stragegy, except that the winning strategy 
becomes one of only working the signals big enough to be certain about.   If 
W7WSY is a bit weak, or doesn't come back to your request because others 
won't shut up and he couldn't hear you, you gotta just scratch him and move 
on. 

This is significant because of lot of the folks who get on for a DX contest 
are motivated to do so by the chance to work "good DX" (by their definition) 
and are willing to work the less rare stuff just for something to do while 
looking for the real DX. A lot of the "good" stuff falls into the second 
category above.  If such a DX station is encouraged to avoid these little 
folks rather than risk an error, the value of contests to these casual 
operators will decrease,  resulting in less activity, less fun, and a harder 
time to justify the use of the spectrum for a contest.
   


>  Another analogy - if you know the IRS audits every tax return sent 
>  in, and charges a $3 penalty for every $1 disallowed, would you be 
>  more careful, and less "creative," before sending it in?

Yes, and the winning strategy would become taking only the most certain 
claims and skipping anything marginal, even if 74.9% of that might actually 
be correct.


Jim  K8MR  


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