[CQ-Contest] WRTC 18 Qualifying

Wed Dec 3 12:53:29 EST 2014

Steve,

Working from different hard spots of the world is nothing new to me. I have
a good imagination and a fairly good understanding of propagation, so no
need to make it sound my imagination is not sufficient to imagine. I do,
believe me.

But as someone said, making a levelled playing field in the WRTC itself is
a challenge. Making a levelled qualification field is even more challenging
(or impossible).

Many contesters in remote areas of this world are having far more
disadvantage than the southwest corner of W5. How do we listen to their
voices and how do we adapt the qualification criteria to make things more
fair to them? It is hard to please anyone and just because people have
managed to qualify to prevlious WRTC does not give them any ree tickets for
the next event (unless you are the winner of the previous). I would even
dare to say I would love to see a bigger rotation of participants. This
would stimulate contesting and the interest far more than seeing same
players returning every four years.

You give a picture that many Americans would be "discouraged" to work you
in case they knew it was the Russian DX Contest?  Would you imagine many
Russians thinking the same way about the American Contest CQWW?  I would
not think any Russian contesters at all would think in that direction.
Russian participation in ARRL DX is also much better than American
participation in RDXC, so I maintain my opinion it is good that excellent
contests like WAE and RDXC get global exposure beyond the "normal"
audience.

We can always debate how many points should be given for winning different
contests, but I see nothing strange that Germans decide to value a victory
in WAE with the same score as a victory in CQWW.  They are the organizers
of WRTC 2018 and have therefore the opportunity to adapt rules somewhat to
stimulate targets they feel are important.

If it is that important to win a slot in WRTC, then I am sure that every
serious competitor find ways how to best allocate resources for reaching
that goal. It usually involves reading the rules carefully and to use every
single allowed part of those rulse to gain advantage. This is how some
competitions are - either we like it or not.

One can always debate how many slots different geographical areas have.
Some areas seem more difficult than others,  but that was not my intention
to comment in this thread.

73 de RM2D, Mats

I am sure we can even find worse examples of locations that are

2014-12-03 19:43 GMT+03:00 Steve London <n2icarrl at gmail.com>:

> Mats,
>
> You would have a very different perspective on WAE and RDXC if you were in
> my shoes. In the southwest corner of the W5 call area, we simply do not
> have much propagation to Europe during the time of year that those contests
> take place. Technically, RDXC is a worldwide contest, but activity outside
> of Europe is very small. You talk about run rates in RDXC ? That is a joke
> from here. Let me tell you an anecdote about my one serious RDXC effort,
> which I needed to operate to qualify for WRTC-2010...
>
> Knowing that I would work very few Europeans, I focused on working casual
> USA stations on SSB. These are stations who had no idea what contest this
> was, and I just asked them for a signal report and QSO number (usually #1).
> I was careful to NOT tell them this was the Russian DX Contest - that would
> discourage many Americans from making a QSO. These casual QSO's made up 2/3
> of my total QSO's. As an added bonus, none of these stations sent in their
> logs, so I had no score reduction for unmatched exchanges. I considered
> this a disingenuous way of winning a WRTC-2010 team leader slot, but that
> was the way the WRTC-2010 qualifying was structured, and the way the RDXC
> rules are written.
>
> 73,
> Steve, N2IC
>
>
>
> On 12/02/2014 09:30 PM, Mats Strandberg wrote:
>
>> Dave,
>>
>> While I do argue with the 2018 organizers on the Assistsd/Non Assisted
>> issue, I fully support the decision to elevate WAE and RDXC to the same
>> level and CQWW and CQ WPX.
>>
>> Why?
>>
>> Simply becuase those two contests are globally considered much bigger than
>> they are in some continents..I do consider the CQ contests superb and they
>> will forever remain as two of my favourite Top Five contests. However,
>> without question, WAE and RDXC have in late years become even more fun to
>> participate in - and this not only to Europeans and Russians. They are now
>> by me and many others considered at same popularity level as the CQ
>> contests.
>>
>> RDXC is not a regional contest. It is a Worldwide contest where Russians
>> compete separately and the rest in a worldwide group. Working DX stations
>> is heavily stimulated by different points compared to working stations
>> from
>> the same continent. The log checking and penalties system requires better
>> operator skills compared to some other contests where the contest echange
>> is more or less given. In RDXC, you nned to make sure you receive both the
>> other stations's callsign and exchange correctly. Moreover, you must
>> moderate your speed in a way that ensures that the other station also gets
>> your call and exchange correctly. If not, penalties for both of you. I
>> know
>> this has caused some US frustration, but in my honest opinion, this
>> develop
>> and stimulate true operator skills rather than skills of relying on the
>> database of the log program.
>>
>> WAE used to be a contest I did not pay attention to because of QTCs. They
>> bothered me because I did not feel I was control of them. It was a new way
>> of contesting and I was against and did not work WAE for many years. Then
>> I
>> gradualy started working it with pleasure but always avoiding exhange of
>> the "troublesome" QTCs. One day I decided to open my eyes and challenge
>> myself to try echanging QTCs. From that day I got stuck!  The skill-set
>> needed to work WAE in full extent by exchanging QTCs is different from
>> normal contesting and the operator that masters that additional complexity
>> of WAE should definitely receive the same credits as the one that runs
>> 300+
>> rates exchanging predictable zones in a CQWW.
>>
>> It is time for Americans to finally explore RDXC and WAE in a serious way
>> and with 1000 points value, be sure the bands will be boiling also in
>> North
>> America those weekends. Run rates in RDXC are excellent for any station
>> participating - for sure not only for Russians.  Particpate and enjoy
>> instead of maintaining a prejudiced opinion about these two great events!
>>
>> 73 de Mats RM2D (SM6LRR)
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> 2014-12-02 23:15 GMT+03:00 David Siddall <hhamwv at gmail.com>:
>>
>>  The difference in rules between WRTC2014 and WRTC2018 that struck me was
>>> that the prior emphasis on worldwide contests while accommodating the
>>> major
>>> regionals was abandoned.
>>>
>>> For WRTC2014, only CQWW received full 1000 value, with CQWPX at 950 and
>>> IARU at 900.  Major regional contests such as ARRL, Russian, WAE, AA
>>> were
>>> 900 or less.  But for WRTC2018, instead of elevating the truly worldwide
>>> contests -- CQWPX & IARU -- the organizers instead emphasize European
>>> regional contests -- WAE and Russian -- both of which now get the top
>>> 1000
>>> value.
>>>
>>> This is a step backward from promoting worldwide competition. It elevates
>>> two Euro-centric competitions with less participation above the more
>>> popular worldwide contests as well as above the other major regionals
>>> such
>>> as ARRL and AA.  Having lived in areas of the world where propagation
>>> doesn't support full time efforts in the regionals (whether or not one
>>> can
>>> "work anyone" but for fewer points/mults), I appreciate the truly
>>> worldwide
>>> competitions that we have.  It says something that these rose to the top
>>> in
>>> popularity in the free marketplace of contests.
>>>
>>> Just my observation.
>>>
>>> 73,  Dave K3ZJ
>>> _______________________________________________
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