[CQ-Contest] DX Contest Handicap Proposal

[w2lc at twcny.rr.com]

Read down a bit for the proposal.

W8JI has it correct, propagation is much more important than distance.  And George you are hilarious! Thanks.

LU5DX said: “FACT: Distance based scoring will also attract more and more entrants”, well no this is not a fact no one knows what will happen. In my opinion distance based scoring will only drive the casual person away from the contest, due to the added complexity. But who knows.

But I think I understand the motivation, stations in the south have a longer distance and also favorable propagation (due to the north south path) than stations in the north but at the same distance. Therefore with distance based scoring you obtain a double advantage, a higher relative score to others while actually doing nothing to improve your QSO total or multipliers, and better propagation to boot!

Proposal Coming

But being open minded let me think out loud …

I suppose …… that since golf has a handicap system based on previous scores, how about adopting that into contesting?  Your contest handicap can be based on your best 5 previous scores in the contest, and then your score adjustment is based on normalizing that against the average score of the last 5 winners.

I estimate the average of my best 5 ARRL DX scores to be about 2,500,000 and the average of the last 5 winning scores to be about what? 5,000,000?  Nice even numbers. Therefore my contesting handicap is 2,500,000 points.  (average of the last 5 winning scores minus the average of my 5 best scores). 

Therefore if I can beat my average best and the winner does not beat his average best, then I win based on handicap!  Example: I score 2,600,000 and add a handicap of 2,500,000 for a “net score” of 5,100,000.  The winner scores 4,900,000 with a “scratch” handicap (zero added points).  Therefore I win the contest based on handicap.

The contest results can then print both the “gross scores” and “net scores”, gross score being the actual unadjusted score, and the net score being the score adjusted by the handicap.  You could have winners for both gross and net categories just like golf!

No distance based scoring needed and it takes into account propagation differences too!

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73 Scott W2LC