[CQ-Contest] More fair, extreme contesting.

[K3BU at aol.com]

k5zd at ma.ultranet.com in Head-to-head writes:

> On a bus ride during WRTC in Slovenia, someone (I think K1AR) made the
>  suggestion of having the competition in "heats" like you see in track and
>  field or swimming.  You would get everyone together for WRTC, then have 
guys
>  face off mano-y-mano for 1 or 2 hours in a single or double elimination
>  format.  Would require less stations and provide some interesting pressure.
>  The issues of "fairness" would be intact since both guys would be operating
>  from similar stations, in the same area, at the same time.
>  
>  Something to think about...
>  


I want to reserve two hours when high bands are open to Europe :-)

Ham radio contesting is a technical sport that involves operator (skills, 
knowledge, etc.) and resources (equipment, antennas, etc.)
    Way to test the above performance is to have let's say limit on resources 
- two luggage airline set - 60 kg for antennas/cables and 60 kg for 
equipment. (Or what can one carry? :-) Now it is up to the contester what he 
can master (build, buy, steal) within those limits and then operate it to 
victory. This would push some innovation and present a better picture of 
complete contester. Locations can be selected and drawn lottery style. 
Shelter and power will be provided, contester will erect the antennas, setup 
the equipment and go for it. This will eliminate the headaches for sponsors 
and silly rules, like no antenna switches, or computer interface to rigs... 
    But then you get storm and 7 hours of rain static S9+20 on all bands and 
your skills and resources go to hell, like it did for our team (and about 5 
other) in S5. But we still had experience of life time and enjoyed meeting 
all the other "extreme radio nuts."
    I would like to see qualification, regional (continental) championships, 
with winners going to the big one, rather than "lottery" type selection. With 
above system, it should be no problem. Anyone serious enough would go to 
trouble of preparing resources and we should be able to see some innovative 
designs. You would have to make tradeoff between amount of radio, power and 
gadgets.
    Notebook computer can be exempt from the weight limit as a tradeoff for 
providing computerized log. 
    Similar rules are with car races, sailboat races and other technical 
sports. You don't see Indy 500 ran on AVIS rentacars. Car design is part of 
the entry, so is ham radio equipment. Why are we trying to put contesters in 
rentacars? Many of us have a pride and spend effort to develop good 
"resources" so we can enhance our (deteriorating) operating skills. Otherwise 
the pileup contest should be enough to show who is the best (callsign 
copying) operator. 
    This "category" would also eliminate CC&R problems with acres, towers, 
antennas, 5 radios, etc. We can have single op category and some version of 
team category. This would help to promote development of skills and 
equipment, rather than HANDICAPPING in finicky ways.

Yuri, K3BU, VE3BMV
 <A HREF="http://members.aol.com/k3bu/TeslaRC.htm">Tesla Radioclub</A> 


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