[CQ-Contest] Level Playing Field - my 2 cents

[Stan Stockton]

Tom,

You have some good thoughts regarding this topic.

There are a lot of variables which cannot and should not be messed  
with. The station and operator are the most important variables and  
should always be most important.

However, the "poor saps" as you call them would be more competitive  
with everyone closer to Europe. Because of where the vast majority of  
contacts to be made are located, everyone farther from Europe will be  
at an advantage relative to everyone closer to Europe as compared to  
the current system.  Works both ways.  Most, except those in extreme  
NE, would be looking straight ahead as well as over their shoulder.

   Using your distance figure for the only East Coast state listed (by  
your definition) the guy in Illinois would have about 20% on the guy  
in MA and lose about 4% to you. That seems like a very good trade to me.

What are your thoughts on the Stew Perry Contest?  Seems generally  
accepted as a reasonably fair scoring method by stations all over the  
world.  Is it because that is the way it was set up from beginning and  
is accepted as being about as fair as it can be, or is it really quite  
unfair? Should the Stew Perry contest (a distance/DX contest) be  
changed so those closer to Europe get the same points as those twice  
as far?  I already know that 160 is a different animal than some  
higher bands.

How would you score the ARRL contest if it were new?  Surely you would  
not assign a flat number of points for each contact out of the country  
if on an apples to apples comparison it was clear that one general,  
and rather small area had huge advantage over most of the rest of the  
country.

It is a difficult subject.  If a change is made it would need to be at  
least as fair overall as the current system.  I think that would be  
relatively easy.  It would also need to be objective and not viewed as  
a handicap system with a subjective component. Anyone who plays golf  
can beat Tiger on a good day if handicaps are involved. Of course  
those handicaps are developed based on final outcomes - scores posted - 
which is not what we are talking about here. There is no joy in  
besting Tiger with him "giving" you ten strokes.

My concern is not whether K3LR or KC1XX or W3LPL wins M/M (and one or  
the other will most likely continue to win).

As mentioned previously, my goal would be to see a Bunch of people use  
the good engineering and a little work as you have mentioned (even the  
guy in Midwest for a single band), to put up some antennas with the  
belief he could win for that band.  At the same time I would like to  
see the guy in MA working the same band realize that if he put in a  
part time effort he just might not beat that guy in Missouri.  That is  
a lot better, in my opinion, for this "sport" than the guy in Missouri  
playing golf on the contest weekend with someone he thinks he can beat.

73...Stan, K5GO

Sent from Stan's IPhone



On Jun 29, 2011, at 8:15 PM, "Tom W8JI" <w8ji at w8ji.com> wrote:

> This is how well thought out this has been. W9RE is around 300 miles  
> closer
> to Germany than I am. I have vastly better propagation, but would  
> get an
> edge over Mike.
>
> Why would anyone want that?
>
> The path direction and what is in that path, like the magnetic  
> poles, is
> more important than the raw distance. There certainly are case where
> distance matters, but K3LR is about the same distance as northern W0  
> land
> from the middle of Europe, and there is no comparison at all in  
> propagation.
>
> I think the real goal here is to diminish the advantage of the east  
> coast's
> (I hardly call WPa east coast) better PATH to Europe.
>
> I'm not sure how to compensate for better paths in scoring, or if we  
> should.
> If we do it by distance, we might as well add a multiplier for being  
> in the
> south. The poor saps way up north and in the midwest are going to get
> stiffed by a distance penalty, and they have it a whole lot tougher  
> than
> anyone else.
>
>
>> Approximate distances to Germany:
>>
>> Ma     3800
>> WPa (K3LR)  4150
>> Mn        4400
>> Wi        4400
>> IL        4500
>> Mid GA 4700
>
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