[CQ-Contest] zero pointers etc

[N7BF]

Rick,

I'd agree that 1 point per qso in your own country would be nice, but don't 
know how it'd fare in a "DX" contest.  After all, your own country isn't DX.

Something I'd like to ask anyone, however, is based on the fact that 
according to the rules, as I read them, you can get "country" multipliers 
and "zone" multipliers by working your own country.  Now, USA zones are 
usually covered by the same zones appearing in Canada, so you can get the 
"zone" multipliers there.  However, how do you get the country multipliers, 
per band, without contacting your own country, which would result in a zero 
point contact?

I'm sure not all (probably by far) of those zero pointers of yours are in 
that situation.  You're probably right about many casual operators not 
understanding the rules of the contest.

Alan - N7BF

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Rick Dougherty" <nq4i at contesting.com>
To: "CQ Contest" <cq-contest at contesting.com>
Sent: Tuesday, November 29, 2005 3:46 AM
Subject: [CQ-Contest] zero pointers etc


> Hi all...I have been analyzing my log to see if there are areas that I can 
> improve my point per qso ratio...its amazing when you sit down after the 
> contest and do a little analysis...first off...my stations are coded and I 
> can see if the run or mult station made a qso..we made a gross number of 
> qso's of 5286 qso's...of that total, 191 were dupes...further analysis 
> shows that less than 8% were made on the mult station...that means that 92 
> % of the dupes called the run station...of our gross qso number we were 
> called by 462 zero pointers...and its kinda amazing that some of these 
> zero pointers were also dupes!
>
> Our average run rate for the entire station is 110 qso's per hour for the 
> total 48 hours...a total of 462 zero pointers and 191 dupes is 653 qso's 
> that were totally useless information exchanged...or a waste of 5.9 hours 
> for the entire station....
>
> I gave a little thought to the process and come up with the following 
> explanations:
>
> 1. Our location has us beaming thru the major East Coast population areas 
> to get to EU, while our competition has the back of their antennas to 
> these same areas...
> 2. Most people don't have a logging/duping program....duh!!!!
> 3. The casual day to day operator really does not have any conception of 
> the rules of the contest and thinks he is truly helping out...that meaning 
> the stateside callers passing out qso's
>
>
> With all this aside, the 8% that were called by my MULT operators, I offer 
> an apology...we will work on improving our error rate and reducing our 
> wasted effort...but what can be done to inform the masses?? You want the 
> casual day to day operator to call you in WPX, but since we don't get any 
> points for same country in CQWW, it really distorts the playing 
> field....is it time to step up to the plate and allow 1 point per qso for 
> contacts within one's country??
>
> de Rick NQ4I