[CQ-Contest] Dumbing-Down Contests?

[Paul J. Piercey]

Hi Ron,

I'll take one point at a time below. 

> -----Original Message-----
> From: cq-contest-bounces at contesting.com 
> [mailto:cq-contest-bounces at contesting.com] On Behalf Of Ron 
> Notarius W3WN
> Sent: February 28, 2008 02:22
> To: cq-contest at contesting.com
> Subject: Re: [CQ-Contest] Dumbing-Down Contests?
> 
> The contest exchange in question, that is, for the DX side of 
> the ARRL DX contest, requires a small amount of skill to 
> decipher.  Especially on CW, when cut numbers and 
> abbrevriations are the norm, there is a small challenge to 
> get it right the first time.
> 

Granted. All I am saying is that it would make it a lot easier if everyone
used the same cut numbers in the same ways. That's it. It's everyone's
prerogative to enjoy being "challenged" with having to figure out what the
DX's interpretation of a cut number is. I have enough to think about so I
want the map.


> Granted, once you have worked a station (assuming you copied 
> the exchange
> correctly) you should know what it is if and when you work 
> that station on another band.  OTOH, you should not (and 
> truly can not) assume that you got it right the first time... 
> because if you didn't, and you assume you did or go with your 
> software's prefill in lieu of copying it again, it can come 
> back to bite you.
> 

I agree totally.


> And what are most of the exchanges?  K or KW or 1K for the 
> kilowatt stations, 100 or 1TT for the majority of the 
> barefoot stations.  That probably covers the vast majority.  
> Most of the rest are variations on the theme... 200, 300, 
> 400, 500, the occasional 250 or 750.  Then we have the people 
> who choose to be... well, some might say 'cute', some might 
> say 'different' -- the 99 (NN) or 999 (NNN) stations, the 
> occasional 50 or 75 or some other unexpected number (I 
> especially like the QRP guys sending 1 or 5 or 7 or any other 
> number up to and including 10).
> 

As long as your "NN" means the same as my "NN", I have no problem with it.
You start sending me "U" (as an example) to mean 1000 watts just because you
think it's going to save you 40msec per QSO and I will have a problem with
it.


> Some seem to have a problem with these.  (Personally, I 
> don't, I think it adds some much needed individuality and 
> 'flavor' to the contest).  But that is the challenge... isn't it?
> 

Each contest can have it's own flavour, no problem. I just find "59 5" or
"5nn nl" to be exactly the simplistic exchange that you seem to be against.
There is no skill in copying something that can be prefilled. At least the
Q, L and H you mention below could not be presumed and would have to be
copied.


> So what is the problem that we're kicking around?  That some 
> people don't know how to send cut numbers, and in one 
> specific case, sent AK instead of 1000?  So you had to take 
> an extra minute to get it right.  That is part of the game... 
> right?  But -- once you got it right, the next time (if) you 
> worked him, then you knew what he was sending, right?  So 
> what did it cost you... 2 minutes?
> 

I was pretty sure what "AK" was immediately. Why send "AK" or "KW" when "K"
would suffice? The guy got the hint after a while anyway. But what if his
interpretation of "AK" was different than yours or mine? Again, if there was
a list of acceptible cut numbers for all to use, it wouldn't (shouldn't)
have been an issue.


> People who are misusing cut numbers, or (presumably) 
> accidentally sending odd, unusual, or misleading ones, need 
> to be educated.  If they are doing so deliberately, to try 
> and trip the contesters up, well that's a different matter.
> 
> But instead, you and others are proposing that we dump the 
> power output in the exchange and replace it for something 
> more generic, something easier -- like Q L H for QRP, Low & 
> High Power, or SO MS MM for operating class, or some 
> combination thereof.  Which removes part of the challenge.  Why?
> 

I have neither proposed that nor do I endorse that at all. I have no problem
with the basic format of the exchange in ARRL DX, or any contest for that
matter. I am actually in favour of a more difficult exchange. I would rather
see each report consist of the callsign, a serial or random number and
whatever "flavour addition" that the contest required or preferred. Get rid
of the RST in favour of something worth copying. Furthermore, the callsign
should always be a part of the exchange in every contest. SS is a good
example although I have had reports sent to me that ignored the callsign
part.

For example:

Me:	VO1HE contest
You:	W3WN
Me:	W3WN 243 NL		(243 being either a serial number or random
number generated by the logging program)
You:	VO1HE 554 PA	(see note above)
Me:	Thanks VO1HE contest

or

Me:	VO1HE contest
You:	W3WN
Me:	W3WN 243 K
You:	VO1HE 554 NN
Me:	TU VO1HE contest

or some such.

But, when you start inserting extra stuff into the exchange, there will
probably be a backlash; mostly, I fear, from those who are usually on the
top of the list each weekend. For any given time, there are only a certain
number of contacts an operator can make. Minimizing the data exchanged
increases this but it does have a finite level. Adding to the data will
result in a decreased score; all things being equal.

Little pistols (me, in other words) don't care what the exchange is. We only
want to play. If we're told in the rules that the exchange is your wifes's
maiden name and your shoe size, we'll go with that. It's the top shelf guys
(the guys who have sunk huge money and effort into building superior
stations and who pioneer such techniques as cut numbers) who want to see a
'return on their investment' by hastening the pace and making more Qs;
techniques and ideas which ultimately filter down to the middle-of-the-pack
ops. That's a good thing. Everyone gets better that way. But those
techniques have to be applicable equally to the middle and low guys as well
as the top guys. If the top operator responds with something totally
unexpected to the middle-pack guy (or vice-versa), like non-standard cut
numbers, everything slows down disproportionately. 


> If you say it's because you want to streamline the contest 
> exchange and make it faster -- which I don't think this will 
> to any significant extent -- then say so.  But don't hide 
> behind the excuse of a handful of poor or unknowing operators 
> who made you waste a whole minute copying a screwy cut number.
> That's the wrong reason for considering this change.
> 

See above. It is not necessarily my goal to make the exchange faster but to
see it become efficient and meaningful. "5nn 5" is about as fast as it gets.
Sorry, I meant "enn e" :)


> And Paul, you say that the Big Time Contesters want to 
> improve their scores?
> Well, that will come in a few years when the sunspots return. 
>  That's a cyclic thing; you've been around, you know that.  
> Scores will improve when propagation on the upper bands 
> improves, when the bands open or open longer, letting us work 
> stations on more bands because we can hear them.
> 

Sunspots have nothing to do with it. There have been records set over the
past couple years during the sunspot minimum so it has no relevence. I said,
and it stands to reason, that big time contesters want to maximize scores.
Why wouldn't they? Increased scores tend to reflect not only better
propagation but better operating skills and/or station improvements. That's
true for whatever the conditions are at the time. They can also use little
tricks such as cut numbers and speeding up the useless information of the
exchange with their keyers to maximize the rate and cut the QSO time. They
can use SO2R and other technology as well. I have no problem with that but
you must admit that score and rate are key to these guys and having a
complex exchange or non-standard exchange elements would have a tendency to
undermine that. Otherwise, if rate and score were not key, why use cut
numbers in the first place?


> The other side of the coin, you see, is that if you are 
> correct, and that changing the exchange will make the QSO's 
> go faster, you also run a real risk of working everybody too 
> quickly... and having few if anyone left to work in the last 
> few hours of the contest.  What's the significant difference 
> of making ~1000 QSO's with the old exchange in the full 48 
> hours, and the same ~1000 QSO's with the new exchange in 40 
> hours?  (Not that I think it would make that much of a 
> difference, but still)
> 

The same score with 8 hours sleep :)


> One last factor to consider is that some of us are relying 
> too much on the technology at hand.  Too many -- not all, not 
> most, but some -- are taking packet cluster spots verbatim as 
> the call of the other guy, and not listening; or assuming 
> that the next SN will be sent in sequence, which is not 
> always the case (I particpated  a few years back in a 
> multi-op that did just that, send the SN's out of sequence on 
> any given band, because the software used a shared pool to 
> generate the SN's), or assuming that the correct power level 
> was copied and stays the same on all bands.  Making things 
> too simple will make it easier for programmers to store the 
> exchange information for future use.  Which means that when 
> W4ZE, who retired and moved from PA back to FL (hi Ted!) lets 
> his good friend N3ZK heads down south to his station barefoot 
> in the annual Hypothetical Contest, the poor schmuck who has 
> W4ZE TED PA KW stored is in for a rude surprise when he 
> doesn't bother to copy W4ZE RANDY FL 100.
> 

I agree. That's why I don't use the cluster anymore. Even whe I did use the
cluster, I always tried to verify the call and info before working them.
Sometimes I'd be waiting a long time before the guy signed. As far as I'm
concerned, the cluster is good for guys who want to find specific things,
like a sweep in SS or a new band/mode country, and guys running SO2R. The
cluster and SO2R were made for each other.


> Now:  Do you educate the schmuck in what he went do, or do 
> you simplify the contest exchange in the Hypothetical Contest 
> so that the schmuck never has to learn and stays a schmuck, 
> just one with with a lot of contacts in the log?
> 
> 73

It seems that this is a matter of two different yet related topics: cut
number validity and exchange content/brevity. Resolving the first one would
help with the second one to a certain extent.

I'm not trying to argue with anyone. The only thing I wanted out of all this
was to have a standard set of cut numbers and have it outlined how they
could be used. That's it. How it grew into making contest exchanges so
simplistic as to be irrelevant is beyond me. That was never my intention.

Anyway, that's enough outta me on the subject. Right or wrong, it's just one
man's opinion.

73 -- Paul VO1HE