[CQ-Contest] ARRL DX "Leveling, Handicapping, Equalizing"

[Hank Greeb]

Tom:

You have a point.  Moving to Texas can be hazardous to one's health, 
especially if one comes from the Western Part of Virginny.  You probably 
will have trouble understanding the local dialect - I know I do when I 
go back home to around Waco Texas, where I was born.

But, geography plays a significant part of the scoring equation.  It 
would be interesting to move some of the "big guns" from the east coast 
to Colouradio, for eggzample.

When I was @ WØANA, University of Denver, back in the 50's, it seemed 
much more difficult to make a legitimate score during Field Day and 
November Sweepsteaks than after I moved to OhHoHo - probably because of 
closer proximity to the larger population areas in the eastern 
corridor.    And, there's lots of anecdotal evidence that folks on the 
east coast have a much easier time working Europe than folks in the 
hinterlands across the teeny tiny hills called by some as the 
Appalachian Mountains.  (We from Colouradio don't call anything shorter 
than 10,000 feet or so a mountain.)

I suspect if I was granted permission to use one of the contest super 
stations on the east coast I'd have a considerably better score in an 
international DX contest than I have here in Michigan with my wire 
antenna, which radiates just a few dB better than a dummy load buried 6' 
underground.

And, now that there are things like Reverse Beacons and the internet, 
one can see paths on real time maps.  Northern Latitudes (at least 
between OhHoHo where I formerly resided and Michigan where we now are 
planted) seem to have, in general, poorer propagation than folks in 
southern parts of the Untied States.  The fellows in Minnesota Wireless 
Association continually discuss this phenomenon.

So, the only way to truly level the playing field would be to take an 
average of the score, and put suitable handicaps on each participant, so 
that each person/station would have identical scores.  No publication of 
anything other than final, handicapped scores allowed.

Would this encourage more operators to partook of contesting?  
Methinketh knot.  Soundeth like some of the educators who want everyone 
to get the same grade in school, so those with lesser intellectual 
capacity won't feel inferior.

73 de n8xx Hg

On 7/5/2011 1:01 PM, Tom Horton wrote:
> Now I understand what has happened. When I was in WV more scores were 
> much much better than they are now in Texas.
>
> Obviously I was a better operator up there. Even though my antenna was 
> higher, I was younger, etc...it just has to be that the location makes 
> you better!  Oh yeah, there were things called sunspots then.
>
> Jusk joking guys...
>
>  Tom K5IID
> *
> From:* James Cain <jamesdavidcain at gmail.com>
> *To:* cq-contest at contesting.com
> *Cc:* n8xx at arrl.org
> *Sent:* Monday, July 4, 2011 11:57 AM
> *Subject:* [CQ-Contest] ARRL DX "Leveling, Handicapping, Equalizing"
>
> Hank:
>
> Maybe your comments (below) were tongue-in-cheek, but you may be on to 
> something.
>
> There is a greater concentration of monetary wealth in the 
> D.C.-to-Boston corridor than anywhere else in the U.S. That's good, 
> because it takes a lot of money to buy the land and build the station 
> to be competitive in DX contests. But it also takes a drive to excel, 
> something that tends toward cold, northern climes.
>
> Of course there are world-class contest operators in other parts of 
> the U.S. But there's a concentration of them in The Corridor. Part of 
> that is due to population density, but that works two ways. The 
> Corridor is a horribly expensive part of the country in which to live. 
> One really, really, has to want to excel not only to live there but to 
> put up a station. (See --  Darwin.)
>
> Want to do better? Move. A guy from New Hampshire built a station in 
> Maine. A guy from New York built a station on Price Edward Island. 
> Good for them.
>
> Truth be known, it is so hard to operate DX contests from close to the 
> Atlantic Ocean ... put up a wire in a tree and those pesky Europeans 
> just call and call, layer after layer of them (thank you EU!). It's 
> impossible to hear any other DX, like in Africa or the Pacific.
>
> I trust this clears everything up.
>
> Jim Cain
> At The New K1TN Superstation
> 7 miles east of Mountain, Wisconsin
>
> ---------------------
>
> "From these data, one can only conclude that the people on the east 
> coast are more competent contest operators than us dolts who live in 
> other parts of the U.S.A.
>
> "It's kinda hard to conclude anything else, particularly since the 
> reflector did weird things with the formatting of these data.
>
> "73 de n8xx"