[CQ-Contest] Distance scoring

[Tom W8JI]

I'm amazed this thing is being pushed so hard without any science to back 
the opinion that a distance problem really exists or that it can be 
corrected or reduced by some forced change in rules.

This has concluded in a letter writing campaign to voice opinions without 
any reasonable effort to think through the problem. If we all planned and 
investigated contest station's physical and operating strategy as well as 
this matter has been reasoned through before jumping to a solution, it would 
be impossible to build a winning station.

Let's be honest here and look at what the goal really is. The goal is to 
deflate the scores of stations who always win (or inflate the score of those 
who cannot win), so other people have a chance with whatever they happen to 
be running and using for operators. Of course we all know that every 
operator is the best, and every station is the best no matter how good or 
bad they really are.  :-)

Once we roll distance into the scoring, we simply shift the perceived 
"unfairness" to someone else.

Instead of changing the rules, less do this thing like bracket racing. Let's 
handicap all stations based on location and antennas, so the only real 
scoring differences are operators and random unpredictable changes in 
conditions. After all, that is what we are really after.

There are really only two ways to solve inequality:

1.) We let everyone compete on the same scoring system but break it into 
different districts or areas. There will be no top ten all USA winners.

2.) We handicap stations with a correction multiplier based entirely on 
geographical location.

If we really want to take a page from Karl Marx, there is a third solution. 
We use a multiplier that corrects inequality based on scores from each 
station averaged over many years.

73 Tom