[CQ-Contest] More fair, extreme contesting.
K3BU at aol.com
K3BU at aol.com
Wed Sep 27 23:35:52 EDT 2000
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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