[CQ-Contest] Leveling the playing field

[Drew Vonada-Smith]

Interesting thoughts Al!  I think the CQ WW "overlays" were designed to do just what you say at a coarse level.  Taking it to the next level, informally via a database seems very interesting.  I'd love to see someone take that on.  Not sure if I could host the bandwidth...

 
73,
Drew K3PA
 
-----Original message-----
From:Alfred Frugoli <ke1fo at arrl.net>
Sent:Tue 11-10-2015 12:17 pm
Subject:Re: [CQ-Contest] Leveling the playing field
To:Drew Vonada-Smith <drew at whisperingwoods.org>; 
CC:Kelly Taylor <ve4xt at mymts.net>; Contesting Reflector <cq-contest at contesting.com>; 
 
Drew, K3PA said:
Beyond that, most competition in most sports for most of us is within your own sphere of activity.  I will never win CQ WW for many reasons, only one of which is because I'm not the best operator.  I don’t expect the rules to equalize the fact that I have one tower with a 2-el yagi, or that I am in Kansas.  I know what my achievements with respect to others in similar circumstance.  I have fun, and set my own idea of achievement.

I've long thought that being able to identify other "stations like mine" to compare contest scores would be wonderful.  For a while the World Contest Station Database was maintained by Pete Smith, N4ZR(http://www.conteststations.com/ <http://www.conteststations.com/> - currently suspended).  Stations weren't categorized at all, but one could browse through and see the hardware a given station was using.  When/if that resource is resurrected it would be great if stations were somehow categorized (i.e. little pistol, single tower, multiple towers, monobanders on all bands, etc.).  Some definitions would need to be developed so station owners would know how to categorize their station - and that's where the devil lies - what are the metrics used to compare stations.  Contest results could be merged with this database so you could look at scores of all "little pistol" stations that operated SOAB high power assisted from the northeast United States - for example.  
 Or, once definitions were developed, this "station category" could be added to cabrillo files and this type of filtering could be facilitated directly in the sponsors contest results (if they allow access to the results database online).  
 To be clear, I'm not suggesting more categories for certificates, plaques, etc from the contest sponsors - I'm suggesting a way to compare yourself to other contesters, thus allowing us to develop our skills and stations relative to other contesters who operate similar stations.
  73 de Al, KE1FO

K3 #3055
K3 #4094
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