[CQ-Contest] Distance-Based Scoring

[Ward Silver]

In any contest on bands for which there is a skip zone, distance-based 
scoring will not work.  Imagine how hard it is to work a station on 10 
meters 200 miles away by backscatter compared to, say, 2500 miles away 
by F2 skip.  Distance-based scoring works on 160 and 80, sometimes it 
would work on 40, mostly it won't work on 20-10 or 6 meters.  It might 
be worthwhile on 2 meters and higher-frequency bands.

Nor is there a handicapping system that equalizes the vagaries of 
propagation between wildly different locations that is not in itself 
wildly complicated.  Believe me, I've tried over the years to imagine a 
system that would actually work.  They would have to be redesigned every 
single year and then be adjusted based on propagation during the actual 
contest.  Perhaps there's a doctoral thesis or two in there but not a 
contest scoring system.

My opinion is that regional-based reporting and operator comparison 
works a lot better and is actually close to comparing apples to apples.  
The WRTC qualification systems move in that general direction although 
for really big regions (Africa, Oceania, etc) there isn't enough 
granularity to achieve the desired purpose. Think about a sort of RRTC - 
Regional Radiosport Team Championships.

If we put the amount of energy spent chasing impossible weighting and 
scoring systems into recognizing the really great efforts and 
accomplishments among regional peers, it would benefit everyone. Sponsor 
a regional plaque or a regional competition or contribute a regional 
writeup to the sponsors or create a regional rating system - all quite 
doable, costs little, promotes the contest, recognizes good efforts - 
what's not to like?  Of course, that would require *us* to do something 
instead of the sponsors :-)

73, Ward N0AX