[CQ-Contest] Level Playing Field and Geography

[Charles Harpole]

Want to level the field, score a contest on the total miles (or Km)
worked... the distance between your station and the contacts.
I grin when I think of what that does to NE, to JA, and to EU.
73, Charly .... who is a long way away from a ham population center.​

On Tue, May 26, 2015 at 2:24 AM, Jim Brown <k9yc at audiosystemsgroup.com>
wrote:

> On Mon,5/25/2015 10:57 AM, W0MU wrote:
>
>> In 30 years how many times has that happened?  In 30 years what is the
>> percentage of Atlantic/East Coast winners compared to the rest of the
>> field.  I suspect these numbers strongly favor the East Coast/Atlantic
>> region.
>>
>
> From Steve's website:
>
> I've operated FD QRP with a tribander and low dipoles from a 5,000 ft peak
> near Monterey, CA. I could hold a run frequency for most of FD on CW, and
> had rates around 70/hour at the end of the contest!  It's like stealing
> candy from a baby. In Steve's case, it's like being at least 1,500 miles
> closer to whoever you're trying to work.
>
> Yes, Steve's a great op, but his QTH is worth a lot. Another great op,
> Trey, N5KO, turns in winning scores for domestic contests from a similar
> site (see W6NL) at the edge of Silicon Valley. When I lived in Chicago,
> anyone operating there was much louder than anyone from W6.
>
> Someone (Randy or Doug?) did an excellent presentation to CTU in Dayton
> this year that I watched online. In it, he showed all the entries for CQWW
> plotted as dots on a world map. The greater the distance from the Atlantic
> Basin, the fewer the number of dots.
>
> That map is powerful support for my thesis that the current scoring rules
> are bad for contesting, because they discourage participation by anyone
> outside the Atlantic Basin. Look at W6 as compared to the East Coast.
> California is 12% of the US population. I'd bet that fewer than 1% of US
> entries in CQWW are from W6.
>
> Look at VK/ZL -- population 8% of US. Look at Asia. Even more telling --
> look at the writeup in CQ. Top scores are listed by US, by EU, and "World."
> Why no listings for SA?  For OC? For AS? For AF? The answer is simple --
> they're not in the "old boys' club that makes the scoring rules! Why do
> stations in PJ, P4, etc. not bother to try to work SA (and stations in AF
> not bother to work AF)?  Simple -- it's a 1 point Q, while the rest of the
> world is 3 points and has a lot more mults, and you've got to turn your
> beam to work them.
>
> The scoring rules define the contest. For major DX contests, they are
> badly broken.
>
> 73, Jim K9YC
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-- 
Charly, HS0ZCW