[CQ-Contest] Establishing a contest within a contest

[Kelly Taylor]

The problem with distance-based scoring for HF bands above 160 (and it’s even a problem on 160), is that even with extra credit for working extra distance (say from VE4 to Europe stedda K1 to Europe), it will never, ever make up for the fact that some areas just can’t work enough of anyone. 

It might help equalize things along the eastern seaboard, where a station in St. Augustine gets more credit for working IR9Q than a station in Rhode Island, but the difference in workability from one to the other is small enough a distance-based system may actually help equalize things.

But you could give me 1000 times the credit for working S59A on 160 than K1DG and it wouldn’t matter one whit, since I’m NEVER going to work S59A on 160 anyway. My chances of working him even on 80 are only slightly better than the chance a SETI station will pickup the broadcast of a baseball game from Kepler 186f!

How much rate does a K1 work Europe when bands are hot? How much rate does a W6 work Europe when bands are hot? I suspect the difference is huge, so are you going to give the W6 enough credit with distance-based scoring to make up for the fact he might only work half of what the K1 does? I’m much closer to Japan than Tor is, yet I can’t imagine he doesn’t work Japan far more easily than the best VE4 station.

And none of this even addresses the vagaries of skip zones, which can often mean, particularly on higher bands, degree of difficulty is inversely related to distance. It’s far, far easier for us to work Ohio, where even pipsqueak Manitoba stations such as mine get reports of 40 over S9, than it is to work North Dakota, 75 miles away, which is often on highly unpredictable propagation modes.

Then consider that from the Caribbean, where you would get MORE points per QSO into Europe than from K1, it’s vastly easier to work three, four or even five layers deep than from K1.

When you’re in Jamaica and call CQ, you quickly realize that 10-khz wide, 40 over S9 pileup comes from every corner of the Earth. So, why should you get more credit for your 500 Asian QSOs than the VE4 who is lucky to get 10 JAs?

73, kelly
ve4xt


> On Nov 13, 2015, at 9:31 AM, RT Clay <rt_clay at bellsouth.net> wrote:
> 
> This is always brought up as an argument why distance-based scoring shouldn't be considered- "if the idea is applied to xxx contest, nothing much changes." The problem is that the location defined by the CQWW exchange (zone and country) is not sufficiently specific to define the location of a station on a length scale that is significant for propagation. For example, stations in west FL and ME are both USA, zone 5. Do they have similar distances and conditions working Europe on the low bands? No. For distance-based scoring to work, it has to include a location which is precise enough to have a higher correlation with propagation differences. For a HF DX contest, I suspect that is more like a grid field than a CQ/ITU zone.
> 
> TorN4OGW
> 
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