[CQ-Contest] DX Contest Handicap Proposal

[hankkier at aol.com]

golf handicaps are a bit less simplistic than described! each course is rated each year based on scores of a large number of players, and assigned stroke and "slope" numbers essentially attempting to equalize degree of difficulty of the specific course...which is then further taken into account against each player's personal 10 best out of last 20 scores. in spite of that, the system is still unreliable for a variety of reasons and is most often not used in competition except between players who frequent the same course. also, golf handicaps are based on 90% of the score differential, not 100%, so they still tend to favor, in the long run, the better player. 

how would you "equalize" all the factors to compare your score vs the winner's? take into account not only distance and propagation but a variety of other factors that affect the outcome - e.g. - where did the winner, and you, operate in each of the last 5 contests? fulltime efforts (what is fulltime???)? equipment changes over time? etc etc etc.

each contest has point scoring rules that make a simple, but best effort, to equalize scores, albeit none fully accomplish that objective. beyond that it seems to me that most of the suggestions being made in this thread are biased to direct an advantage towards a person/group that presently feels disadvantaged. 

my opinion: compare your score to the group of scores you believe most closely approximates your own situation and adjudge how you "place" for yourself. it's not for money! the superops can take their shot in WRTC every 4 years.

Hank KF2O






-----Original Message-----
From: w2lc <w2lc at twcny.rr.com>
To: cq-contest <cq-contest at contesting.com>
Sent: Thu, Jun 30, 2011 4:28 pm
Subject: [CQ-Contest] DX Contest Handicap Proposal


Read down a bit for the proposal.
W8JI has it correct, propagation is much more important than distance.  And 
eorge you are hilarious! Thanks.
LU5DX said: “FACT: Distance based scoring will also attract more and more 
ntrants”, well no this is not a fact no one knows what will happen. In my 
pinion distance based scoring will only drive the casual person away from the 
ontest, due to the added complexity. But who knows.
But I think I understand the motivation, stations in the south have a longer 
istance and also favorable propagation (due to the north south path) than 
tations in the north but at the same distance. Therefore with distance based 
coring you obtain a double advantage, a higher relative score to others while 
ctually doing nothing to improve your QSO total or multipliers, and better 
ropagation 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 
bout adopting that into contesting?  Your contest handicap can be based on your 
est 5 previous scores in the contest, and then your score adjustment is based 
n 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 
verage of the last 5 winning scores to be about what? 5,000,000?  Nice even 
umbers. Therefore my contesting handicap is 2,500,000 points.  (average of the 
ast 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 
est, then I win based on handicap!  Example: I score 2,600,000 and add a 
andicap of 2,500,000 for a “net score” of 5,100,000.  The winner scores 
,900,000 with a “scratch” handicap (zero added points).  Therefore I win the 
ontest based on handicap.
The contest results can then print both the “gross scores” and “net scores”, 
ross score being the actual unadjusted score, and the net score being the score 
djusted by the handicap.  You could have winners for both gross and net 
ategories just like golf!
No distance based scoring needed and it takes into account propagation 
ifferences too!
--
3 Scott W2LC

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