[CQ-Contest] If it CWACs...it's Fun (was Have NCCC and PVRC ruined SS?)

[Joe]

Maybe I'm sentimental, but SS is my favorite contest of all contests.
Maybe it is because it was the very first contest i ever participated 
in. A newly licensed Novice in September of 1975. The chance to make a 
LOT of contacts on SSB, and use a nice station, a Mosley Classic 33 up 
60 feet, and Kilowatt power, and a VFO! compared to my home station of 
40 meters only CW with 1 crystal. When the local club offered the two 
new Novices me and WN9SBC to run the graveyard shift Midnight to...... 
we both jumped at the chance.

So that is one reason i love SS

I think the other is the complexity of the xchange it isn't the simple 
59 IL or whatever there are stuff ya actually need to copy, serial 
numbers and other stuff. so to me it is contest that requires more skill 
than many others do.

Sadly I also have been bit by the old fart bug, Where I could do CQWWCW 
without taking any breaks other than the mandatory bodily ones,  now 
days I have no way to sit through a 24 hour one, even sprnts at the end 
of 6 or 7 hours and I'm wasted.

Sucks getting old.

Joe WB9SBD
Sig
The Original Rolling Ball Clock
Idle Tyme
Idle-Tyme.com
http://www.idle-tyme.com
On 2/3/2013 3:20 PM, Jack Haverty. wrote:
> Fascinating discussion.  As I recall, this started out as a request to
> hear people's thoughts, and I've been thinking about it for a while so
> I'll toss my two cents in.  Full disclosure -- I've been in NCCC for a
> few years now, but my early ham days in the 60s were in PVRC territory
> (I became K3FIV, actually KN3FIV, in 1963 in EPA), so I have
> experienced a bit of both worlds.  I'm also just a little pistol - 100
> watts and a dipole; I've found that I enjoy using a modern station but
> similar to what I had back in the 60s.   Maybe I have the QRP gene.
> Anyway, I guess I enjoy contesting, SSB, CW, RTTY, whatever, but I'm
> not a "serious contester".  I'm just fodder for the big-rate big guns.
>
> Please take what I say as constructive criticism.   I know I'm wrong,
> I just don't know why.  You'll probably tell me.
>
> I probably won't be revealing any state secrets to recall some NCCC
> email discussions prior to the last SS.  It seemed that a lot of
> people were tired of SS.  It just wasn't worth the effort.  It was
> unfair for us West Coast stations.   It was too long for aging bodies
> to endure and be competitive.  Whether or not such things are true, if
> people think that they're true, it takes away some of the Fun of a
> contest.  From any or all of such reasons, the club decided not to
> focus on SS 2012.  There were sighs of relief, as people were freed
> from the yoke of facing another painful SS experience.
>
> Since other people noticed a difference after the contest, we could
> conclude that fewer West Coasters participated, or at least spent
> fewer hours on the air compared to earlier years.   Without the
> incentive and pressure of being a club "focus", activity from NCCC in
> the SS 2012 "experiment" apparently dropped enough to be noticed.
>
> IMHO, we can learn a few things from this experiment.  i think the
> major lesson is that people participate in contests because it's Fun -
> more Fun than something else they might do that day.  Many people just
> enjoy using their ham radio equipment, since contests bring the bands
> alive with other stations to work.  They don't expect to "win" in any
> way, but it's fun just to use the radio.  It's Fun.  I suspect the
> majority of stations in contests are in this category, especially the
> ones who don't even submit a log.
>
> Die-hard contesters will participate no matter what. But many people
> participate because they have at least some hope of winning in some
> way.  It might be placing in the top ten, or just simply doing better
> than they did last year.  Again, to them it's Fun.
>
> Contesters with little hope of any personal victory can help their
> club to a victory, by contributing their scores to the club aggregate.
>   That's Fun too.
>
> If you experience enough Fun out of any or all of these reasons for
> participating, you're likely to participate.  If not, you'll probably
> go watch a ball game instead - it's more Fun for you.  Without the
> "Club Fun" for NCCC members in SS 2012, there was apparently a lot
> more ball game Fun that weekend - enough for others to notice.
>
> I think the lesson here, primarily for the contest organizers, is that
> the Fun contained in the SS contest itself may have deteriorated.   SS
> needs an extra push from clubs to convince their members to
> participate when they'd rather be doing something else that's more
> Fun.  Perhaps that may be something the Contest Committee would like
> to address.
>
> ------
>
> Fast forward to February 2013.
>
> There's another experiment now in progress but possibly not very
> visible except to some club members.   Forgive me if I don't have all
> the details right...  NCCC challenged other large clubs to a grand
> NAQP battle - kind of a "meet me in the alley" unsanctioned fray, but
> the "alley" is the three NAQP battles - CW, SSB, and RTTY.   PVRC and
> SMC accepted, and these three clubs are now in ongoing combat, with
> the final RTTY round later this month.
>
> There's an interesting quirk in this NAQP experiment.  Club scores for
> the battle will be computed (by the clubs, not the NAQP sponsor) by
> adding all of the members' individual scores, as you might expect.
> But, the clubs wanted to encourage participation, and encourage
> members to try new modes.  So, ... each club's score will be
> multiplied by the number of club members who make at least 1 QSO in
> that particular battle.  This "multiplier" has had an interesting
> effect in the SS and CW battles which already occurred.  Judging by
> the whining on email, quite a few diehard CW contesters managed to
> find their microphones and make at least one SSB contact. and
> similarly the SSB guys overcame unimaginable obstacles to get a CW Q
> in their logs.  In fact I suspect most of them did a lot more than 1
> Q.  If you get on for NAQP RTTY on the 23rd, you may hear some rather
> familiar contest callsigns struggling with RTTY Qs -- if they can get
> the station sorted out and working by then to make at least 1 Q.   I
> bet they'll make more.
>
> The experiment is still in progress, but it seems everyone's having
> Fun, and there's more activity so other participants are probably
> having more Fun too.  I don't think anyone has an idea which club will
> win - and that's Fun too.
>
> A lesson to be learned from this experiment - it's possible to design
> a "Contest Within A Contest" (CWAC) to create both more Fun for the
> clubs and more participation, which leads to more Fun for everyone.
> This can be done without changing the existing rules.  It's possible
> to introduce a new or different aspect in such a CWAC, e.g.,
> increasing participation, by defining the CWAC's own scoring rules
> appropriately.
>
> Existing contests' rules can be mentally split into two categories.
> The basic rules are ones which affect the Qs themselves - e.g., the
> exchange, or what constitutes a "dupe".  A rule such as "work any
> station only once" fits this category.   In a CWAC, you have to live
> within such rules;  if you do, other participants in the contest won't
> notice the difference on the air -- as is happening now in NAQP.
>
> The second category of rules includes the ones which define scoring,
> i.e., how you compute the score of a log.   Number of points per Q,
> multipliers, etc., fall into this category.  In general, a CWAC has
> pretty broad latitude to define it's own scoring rules without
> affecting regular participants in the contest -- as the NCCC/PVRC/SMC
> NAQP experiment is doing.
>
> All of this can be done without the need to change any existing
> contest rules, as the NAQP experiment demonstrates.   It's all under
> control of the clubs who decide to "throw down the gauntlet" and name
> the venue and rules for their grand shootout.  They can simply all
> submit their logs to each other for validation.  Or maybe they just
> trust each other to compute their own results.
>
> -----
>
> SS 2013?
>
> With the SS 2012 and NAQP Battle experiments mostly behind us, I'd
> encourage clubs to collaborate and define one or more CWACs to be held
> during SS 2013, along the lines of what was done for the current NAQP.
>   Basic contest rules, the ones that affect QSOs themselves, would be
> off-limits, so that the traditional "base" contest isn't disrupted.
> But scoring rules for a CWAC could be created as desired by the clubs
> involved to support the interests and goals of the clubs who want to
> do battle with each other.  Traditional SS participants should notice
> nothing other than hopefully increased activity, which should be Fun
> for everyone.
>
> No existing contest rules need to be changed at all.  It's up to the
> clubs involved to define what they consider to be enough Fun to accept
> the challenge of a CWAC.   We seem to argue a lot about all the
> problems with existing contest rules and the undesirability or
> difficulty of changing them.  We can't all agree.  But we don't have
> to.
>
> Perhaps NCCC, PVRC, and SMC will relish a SS CWAC as a rematch of the
> NAQP fray?   Perhaps others will join, or form their own
> battlegrounds?
>
> Proposals...?
>
> There's been some good ideas floating around.  I particularly like the
> "gridsquare" club boundary.  I'd like to toss two ideas into the
> hopper for consideration in defining a CWAC, for SS2013 and other
> contests.  Both are intended to increase participation and therefore
> Fun for everyone.
>
> ---
>
> First, the every-club-member-is-a-multiplier in the NAQP battle is an
> interesting scoring rule - we'll see what happens with that after that
> last round of RTTY.
>
> Another similar "multiplier" scoring rule could be that each club
> member gets a multiplier for each member of a different competing club
> that they work.   On the surface, this might look like a wash.  If an
> NCCCer works a PVRCer, each club gets a multiplier so there's no real
> effect.
>
> However, there are many members of a club who have less than
> superstations, and who can therefore be expected to have weaker
> signals into the other clubs' territories.  To get such stations as
> multipliers, the other club would have to be good at pulling out weak
> signals, and at finding such stations who might only be on the air for
> a short time.  Thus this rule would encourage working weaker stations,
> who probably haven't been spotted, and therefore test a club's radio
> skills at such tasks.  It would also make more Fun for those little
> pistols, and encourage more participation.
>
> In a two-club CWAC, this might end up being a wash in the scoring.
> But in a three-club battle, it becomes more interesting -- e.g., if
> PVRC and NCCC don't work each other much, but SMC works a lot of both
> PVRC and NCCC, SMC would get a lot more multipliers from exercise of
> that weak-signal skill than NCCC or PVRC.  Which club has better radio
> skills for finding and working weak signals?
>
> Whether this would be "fair" or not is to be seen.  But it would be
> different, and that should be Fun.   Do you go for Rate, and just work
> the strongest as they come to you?  Or do you seek out the weaker
> stations, searching for more multipliers, who probably haven't even
> been spotted at all?   Even devising the Strategy can be Fun.
>
> This kind of multiplier effect should be especially good at increasing
> Fun for the masses of ordinary stations who never have much hope of
> winning anything by themselves.  But they can have a noticeable
> contribution to their Club score - more Fun should encourage more
> participation.  Of course, I'm biased -- my little station is usually
> barely a blip in the NCCC scores.  But there's lots of stations like
> mine, and encouraging those operators to participate should be Fun for
> everyone.
>
> ---
>
> So, here's a second suggestion for increasing participation,
> especially from people who wouldn't normally participate at all.
> Let's get more newbies into contesting by making it easier for them to
> get started with a good experience so they get hooked.  Yes,
> contesting is addictive...
>
> To do this, we encourage clubs to have their members "elmer" one or
> more non-contesters to try out contesting, or for existing contesters
> to try out a new mode, by being able to use a decent contest station
> that is already set up and ready to go.  The setup of a contest
> station, including radio, computers, software, etc., can be a little
> daunting for newbies, especially in complex environments like RTTY.
> It doesn't have to be a superstation for a newbie to have Fun.
> Probably better if it's not.
>
> An "Elmering Station" is simply a contest station which will be shared
> by a number of contesters in turn over the contest period.  Each will
> use his or her own callsign for a few hours.  This will not only give
> them the feel of having their own station, but also give each the
> opportunity for a realistic contest experience of what they might do
> at home.  Newbies like to work the easy strong stations first (the
> ones who sit on the same frequency for hours - you know who you are).
> By using their own callsign (only one callsign per person) Elmering
> Stations will be available for Qs whenever their turn at the console
> occurs, unlike "multi-op" scenarios where the easy Qs were likely all
> made by the first op at the multi-op station early in the contest.
> Each club might want to set up one or more such stations.  Perhaps a
> Serious Contester whose Fun now runs out after 10 hours BIC can enjoy
> seeing some newbies use his equipment. In addition to facilitating
> elmering newbies, it could provide a way for experienced contesters
> with time limitations, or HOA constraints, to spend a few hours having
> Fun.
>
> The only effect an Elmering Station should have on the traditional
> contesting participants would be the appearance of lots more callsigns
> to be worked.  That increased activity should make especially the
> late-contest period more Fun for everyone.  More participation in this
> contest, hopefully leading to even more participation in the future.
>
> Such "Elmering" behavior is unfortunately outlawed by ARRL General
> Rule 3.5, so any station used for Elmering would be able to submit
> only a Checklog for the SS competition itself.   Since they probably
> have no expectation of winning anything, it's probably not a big deal.
>   I think the same would be true of the "GridSquare Club Boundary"
> rule.   But the clubs defining a CWAC could choose to accept such
> entrants and count their scores toward the club's results in the CWAC.
>
> -------------
>
> Well, there's lots more such experimenting that's possible, to create
> more Fun for everyone without even changing any contest rules.
> Perhaps some experiments in CWACs will prove worthy to be incorporated
> into the base contest rules.  That's up to the decisions of the
> contest committees.  The CWACs however are only up to the decisions of
> the clubs involved.
>
> Hopefully we'll figure out how to have more Fun.  Now, time to go --
> there's another big NCCC/PVRC battle brewing, and this one's even on
> national TV.   It's the NCCC Niners against the PVRC Ravens.
>
> If you've gotten this far, you must be a Contester!  Thanks for listening!
>
> 73,
> /Jack de K3FIV
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