[CQ-Contest] Challenges vs Teams

[Gerry Hull]

I have been talking with a few contest friends about the team idea.  We
were trying to come up with a really cool team implementation that would
play in the current contest structure, with very minor modification and no
real logger changes.

How about this: SOTA:  Single-Op Team Assisted.   These are two single-ops
as a team.  Team Members can be from anywhere.   The team members are
interconnected on the internet, and can pass stations to each other.   They
use their own calls.   They would be Assisted because they can share
passes, and they can use Spots.   They could have a power overlay.   An
additional cabrillo line identifies the team.   All QSOs allowed per host
contest rules.
No on-air team id -- but perhaps teams could be tracked by real-time web
site.

Can  two Americans, one from the west and one from the east beat a team
from Europe and Asia?
Can VY2 + D4 beat OH + 3V?

These and many other combinations that could be tested.

The reason for only two-man teams?   It's easy to start with, and
simplifies the rules.

73, Gerry W1VE.




On Sat, Dec 7, 2013 at 12:35 PM, Ward Silver <hwardsil at gmail.com> wrote:

> Challenges are as old as contesting - the one with which I am best
> acquainted is the Pacific NW Traveling Trophy (http://www.wwdxc.org/
> operating/contesting/pacific-northwest-challenge-cup-rules.html) that
> creates a year-long competition between the OR/WA/VE7 contesters.  This is
> how they maintain interest and activity in a propagationally "unique" area
> that rarely has a shot at continental top spots. (There are exceptions but
> we are talking about the majority of contesters who don't have big
> stations.)
>
> What is important is the sense of relative equality and peer-to-peer
> competition.  This sort of organized challenge works best on a local and
> regional basis because of the propagation and scoring variations over
> bigger areas which have been discussed widely for the past few days.  It
> doesn't make a lot of sense for equal stations to challenge each other if
> they are located in widely separated locations, for example.  Rather than
> pursue the unattainable goal of a level playing field, find a level spot on
> the field and play there, instead.
>
> On the other hand, competitions of distributed stations connected over a
> network, compiling a common log, and working as a single team as has been
> proposed can be up to world-wide depending on the rules.  I suggest
> starting relatively simply with two basic categories:
> - Distributed multi-single: one active transmitter at a time, all
> operators can receive, perhaps with a minimum time required between band
> changes and a maximum period during which any one station can make contacts.
> - Distributed multi-multi: up to six SOAB stations all combined into one
> team with the only restriction being the one-signal-at-a-time-per-band (or
> maybe only one-signal-at-a-time).
>
> It would be a strategic decision how to allocate operator and station
> resources vs time and band.  Do you have six strong single-band operations
> or do you allocate the all-band stations through the day based on
> propagation or does every station try to work everything and anything all
> the time?  Or something else entirely?
>
> Perhaps an on-air team ID is not required - it really doesn't matter as
> long as the team manages the log internally to not claim credit for dupes.
> (We would need to consider what happens when more than one team station CQs
> on a band under different calls...not simultaneously...but this might not
> be an issue and could be part of strategy.)  It should be required, though,
> that the teams post their composite score and breakdowns in real-time.
>  Teams should preregister each member under the common name, I would think.
>
> Sounds like fun to me!
>
> 73, Ward N0AX
>
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