[CQ-Contest] It Is What It Is

[PaulKB8N at aol.com]

In a message dated 11/1/2006 8:15:28 A.M. Central Standard Time,  
steve.root at culligan4water.com writes:

With the  notable exception of K0HB, I can't help but notice that those  most
vigorously opposed to any "leveling of the playing field" are those  who's
fields need the least leveling.



As the author of this thread, I politely disagree.  I lived in  Europe two 
years and four years in Asia and operated all the major contests, and  there is 
no silver bullet magic formula that would equalize scores to provide  such a 
comparison.  
 
I think the best way to level the playing field is to allow enough  filtering 
of performance components (location, power, antennas, SO2R, etc)  that you 
can actually establish some kind of meaningful performance  comparison against.
 
What I really learned from living around the world is that CQWW really  is 
several different contests, depending on where you happen to live.   (BTW, 
Europe was by far my favorite CQWW location)
 
How do we "equalize" those contests?   Absolutely the best  way is to 
evaluate all performance factors (noted above) in a true apples  to apples comparison 
how the scores vary around the world.  We can  then score the results with 
different scoring formulas among  equally equipped stations to see which is the 
fairest.  It will never be  perfect, but it may help eliminate some of the 
perceived  inequalities.
 
Paul, K5AF