[CQ-Contest] Contest Idea

[Jim Brown]

The thing that's wrong with this idea for a contest is that it still 
gives scoring advantage to stations geographically positioned for good 
access to the most countries with large ham activity. The great thing 
about the WPX model is that countries like JA, which offer one country 
multiplier and one zone multiplier offer almost enough prefix 
multipliers to make up for those offered from EU. That makes stations 
with poor access to EU but good access to AS a lot more competitive.

73, Jim K9YC

On Thu,4/6/2017 5:03 PM, Randy Thompson K5ZD wrote:
> Hi Mark,
>
> I spent a lot of time thinking about something like this when I was Director
> of the CQWW.  I know there are a lot of DXers out there who operate the
> contest just to chase countries.  Always wondered if there would be interest
> in a "DXer" competition where the winner would have the highest total
> countries + zones.  I balked on doing something because it seemed like the
> top mults always went to the serious guys who made the most QSOs.  Never
> found a good way to put the emphasis more on DX chasing.  Perhaps a combined
> total for SSB and CW would help.
>
> Didn't see much discussion on this, but wanted to add some support for the
> idea.
>
> Randy, K5ZD
>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: CQ-Contest [mailto:cq-contest-bounces at contesting.com] On Behalf Of
>> Mark
>> Sent: Tuesday, March 21, 2017 9:23 PM
>> To: CQ-Contest at contesting.com
>> Subject: [CQ-Contest] Contest Idea
>>
>> A few days ago there were some comments around contests and rules you
>> would like to see.  So here is one idea.
>>
>> At the moment CQ has a DX Marathon that runs for a year.  I have been
>> thinking what would happen if there was a version that was run over 48
>> hours?  As with the Marathon the object would be to work as many
>> countries and zones as you could but unlike the CQ WW (for example) the
>> number of QSOs you make is irrelevant.  You could utilise the categories
>> in the existing CQ WW contests e.g. single op single band or all band,
>> assisted, unassisted, multi op etc.  The exchange would be report and CQ
>> Zone (the latter largely so you know what zone the person is in so you
>> can claim it).  Ties would be broken by looking at who worked their last
>> country/zone the earliest.
>>
>> Unlike the CQ WW which is largely a rate contest, this would be a
>> strategy contest i.e. you would have to figure out how to maximise your
>> country and zone count.  When do you call CQ? Should you S&P instead?
>> Which way should I turn my beam and when?  Of course you may end up
>> working a number of stations who do not count because you have already
>> worked someone in that region (but who you should log regardless), but
>> that might be the price worth paying to work for example that rare zone
>> guy who you have heard and who does not like pile ups.
>>
>> This sort of format might also encourage non-contesters (i.e DXers) to
>> have a go and from there if they like it a few more may turn up in the
>> more regular type contests.  Any QSO would also count towards the annual
>> DX marathon so a lot of those guys would probably turn up looking for new
>> countries.
>>
>> Issues to be considered would be modes and bands.  As a competition it
>> should probably be restricted to the non-WARC bands although of course
>> the annual DX Marathon covers all bands.  Presumably any mode should
>> count i.e.
>> CW SSB and digital which would certainly spread the participants out and
>> the entry categories should reflect that.
>>
>> Log checking should in theory be easier as you only have to worry about
>> QSOs that were new countries and Zones for an entrant.
>>
>> To avoid a cluttered contest calendar perhaps it could be run each year
>> on a weekend which crosses two months.  This year for example would be
>> September 30 and October 1.  That would add an additional element of
>> changing the seasonal propagation so you may need to think of a new
>> strategy each time.
>>
>> If you want to get an idea of what an outcome may look like, have a look
>> at the CQ WW results database and sort a category by countries worked.
>> It is quite interesting.
>>
>> 73
>> Mark ZL3AB (flameproof jacket suitably donned)
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