[CQ-Contest] Is it time to reevaluate CQWW Scoring Rules?

[Gerry Lynch]

On Thu, 10 December, 2009 1:10 am, Robert Chudek - K0RC wrote:
> David KY1V said:
>
> "I am very interested in ideas how the scoring system could be changed in
> a manner that gives everyone a fair chance to win, regardless of
> location."
>
> And then Gerry GI0RTN responded:
>
> "It can't be."
>
> So my question then is this (thinking outside the box here)... Why in the
> world is a World Wide Winner identified and awarded if the 'game' is not
> fair, and never can be fair for all participants?

The game is fair.  We all know the rules when we start.  If obtaining a
world winning score is your aim, we all know the most advantaged
geographical locations.  We know the local topography that is going to
help our score.  If you have the time, money and energy, go there and
erect a world-class station and (if you have the world-class operating
skills to match) win.  If you are one of the tiny number of contesters in
that elite bracket, identifying the right part of the world to win is part
of the skill of the game.

All this is beyond most of us, so our aim surely is to get the best score
we can from our location and real estate, hopefully improving our skills
and equipment to do so.  Oh, and to have fun.

I could clone myself, operate from here and send my clone 40 miles
directly east to Scotland where the only propagation difference is 4
minutes shorter openings to NA and an imperceptibly easier path to some
AS/Pac multipliers.  My clone could build an identical station and I will
beat my clone hands down because, at least on CW, GI is a rare multiplier
and GM isn't.

You will never get a world win from Minnesota unless the scoring system is
somehow tweaked to make sure that MN stations get some sort of special
"Viking bonus" because Minnesota is in the RF black hole of the universe,
as I'm sure you have noticed.  Same goes for the guys in VE7, CE, 5R8, JA
and half the planet.

We have 1pt/km scoring and no multipliers for the vast majority of VHF and
up contests in Europe and does that end the arguments about a fair scoring
system?  Does it hell.

Any scoring system with lines on maps runs into boundary effects; any
system based on distance reveals that some areas have much longer periods
of propagation to far away, high population, places with easy
transequatorial paths.  Buenos Aires is half-again as far away from here
as Vancouver but it's a lot easier to work LUs than it is to work VE7s.

Or you could just make QSOs all score the same - in which case us GIs will
sit at the optimum distance to boom into DL all day and all night but that
hardly fits the bill of a *DX* contest.

73

Gerry GI0RTN