[CQ-Contest] WRTC Selection Criteria - Was WRTC 2006 - Where are all the people?

[George Fremin III]

On Sat, Dec 17, 2005 at 05:41:56PM -0800, Ken Widelitz wrote:
> 
> Oms states "The selection criteria based upon results is one of the major
> request from our contest population."
> 
> I don't know who was asked. I suspect a few members of previous WRTC
> committees or well known contesters who do the Sprint. At the time I did
> some research. This is what I found and emailed to Oms.

I was not involved in any way in the choice of selection criteria.

I do seem to recall that over the years folks have complained that
the WRTC selection by appointment by a club or other group was 
not fair.  I was not one of these people.  But I can understand
their view very well.

Didn't the last WRTC have some sort of way for a few teams
to get selected based on points or some sort of rating system?

I seem to recall K6LA going to alot of trouble to rate a large
number of contesters using this rating system. 

> 
> "In the most recent Feb '05 CW NA Sprint there were only about 190 entries.
> There was a measly 134 entries for the Feb '05 Phone NA Sprint. In the most
> recent Nov '04 Sweepstakes there were 1557 logs for phone and 1113 logs in
> CW. In the most recent Feb '05 ARRL DX contest there were 1187 US/VE CW
> entries and 1156 US/VE phone entries. Clearly the Phone Sweepstakes is the
> MOST POPULAR U. S./VE contest, by FAR.
> 
> For comparison, there were about 1165 logs submitted from the U. S. for the
> 2004 CQWW SSB DX contest and about 1100 logs for the 2003 CQWW CW DX contest
> (the 2004 CW results are not published yet, so I used 2003.) The 2004 CW WPX
> contest had under 650 U. S. logs submitted. The 2004 SSB WPX contest had
> even fewer U. S. logs submitted. The CQWW contests might have the
> reputation, but the Sweepstakes and ARRL DX contests have the popularity in
> the U. S. These are simply the facts. Please, look at the ARRL and NCJ Web
> Sites and the CQ magazine results issues to confirm my statements.

This is very interesting - I had been sort of wondering how the SS
and the DX contests matched up in USA logs submitted - but not enough
to go find out.

> 
> For the NA sprint to be worth more points than the ARRL DX contest when it
> has less than 14% of the entries and 8.3% of the operating time and equal in
> points to the Sweepstakes which has over 8X the entries and 6X the operating
> time is just not right."

You might have a point but....

> 
> "What skills in the NA Sprint carry over to WRTC, or ANY other contest for
> that matter? Absolutely none!

Please - there are plenty of skills that carry over. 

One skill - you have to know the code *very* well to do the CW sprint.

There are others.

> you don't make decisions about whether and when to operate phone or CW and,
> perhaps most importantly, it doesn't test an operator's endurance, which is
> a major component of being competitive in every other amateur radio contest.
> The WRTC is a 24 hour, mixed mode DX contest. The applicants should be
> judged and selected on that basis."

I dont think we have to limit ourselves to just 24 hour mixed mode
DX contests to see who has contest skills. (you left out the fact
that the WRTC is a multiop event)

With the logic presented - then surely you would agree that the WRTC 
operating event is in no way close to the end all for testing
operating skill of a single operator. 


> 
> As far as the US West entries go, N6MJ is ahead of me by 17.15 points. Four
> of his best 8 contests for WRTC consideration are from the 4 hour NA Sprint.
> Only one of mine is. So for operating 12 hours, Dan gets about 50 points on
> me for my 100+ hours of operating in more popular (by entries) contests.
> This is not to denigrate Dan's contesting skills in any way. It is just an
> example of what I perceive as the inherent lack of fairness in the selection
> criteria. I'll have to wait and see if there is another higher scoring US
> West entry that bounces me from #2.
> 
> You can say this is sour grapes on my part, and you might be right about
> that. But at least my grapes were grown in a logical fashion.

I would like to point out that my WRTC points do not include 
a single NA Sprint contest (either mode) and also do not include 
any CW contests.   How does that square with the logic you 
used to look at your scores vs. N6MJ's scores?


One other comment.

VE3DZ says he (and others) are not submitting applications because 
they know there will be operators ahead of them in score.
What if those ops end up not going for some reason?
How will you feel if they drop out and someone with a score
lower than yours gets selected?

I have submitted an application.  Will I go to PY in July even
if I have a high enough score?  I can not say that I will
go to PY even if my score is high enough.

I could give you more than five reasons that I might not 
make the trip to PY in July.


-- 
George Fremin III - K5TR
geoiii at kkn.net
http://www.kkn.net/~k5tr