[CQ-Contest] CQWW Assisted - Is it just another Urban Myth ?

[Kelly Taylor]

The corollary to your point, Trent, if true, is that then it shouldn’t matter if unassisted operators cheat…

That said, we are now seeing an inversion of what had been reality for a long time: assisted operators are now beating unassisted. Look at the 2017 ARRL DX CW, for example: KI1G was almost a million points ahead of K3CR (LZ4AX, op.). Indeed, it’s not until the No.4 spot in SO Unlimited High Power before the assisted operator is beat by an unassisted. Such doesn’t hold on the DX side, but it’s easy to chalk that up to the Top 3 (the only ones to beat the assisted high power ops) being 8P5A, TI5W and 6Y2T — with huge propagation advantages — over the No. 1 SO Unlimited High Power winner, D4C.

A similar pattern held in ARRL DX CW in 2016.

A similar pattern is developing in CQ WW, as well. In 2016, K5ZD, running assisted, beat unassisted W1KM by almost 600,000 points. It didn’t hold up for World scores, but again, the top world stations were run by N6MJ (aka, master of duelling pileups), KL9A (@TI5W), CT1BOH and W2SC (@8P5A). No slight to any of the assisted world Top 6, but the Top 4 World ops are arguably all at the top of the heap in terms of mastering dual radio contesting.

A contest where it hasn’t happened, yet, is SS. In that case, and as author of results articles for 17 years, I’ve followed it closely, some of the operators report using very little assistance. As well, with a maximum 83 multipliers, the benefits to spotting mults is greatly reduced. (Those who use assistance use it more to find fresh meat, usually on the second radio, than anything, often having secured their sweeps through CQing.) Most of the operators I’ve polled in regards to why assisted don’t beat un will say either the top unassisted operator is really just THAT good (such as N2IC, N9RV), had a tremendous propagation advantage (WP3R) or they knew they had factors working against them (location, etc.).

I offer none of this in support of merging categories. Just helping set the record straight.

The challenge, when running assisted, it seems to me, is striking a balance between being distracted from rate and adding to your score. If you watch videos of N6MJ, for instance, you’ll see he needs no assistance as he usually has massive pileups on both radios without it. The mults come to him.

73, kelly, ve4xt 


> On Jul 31, 2017, at 8:18 AM, Trent Sampson <vk4ts at outlook.com> wrote:
> 
> Sorry Stan
> 
> But the statistics do not support your biased view - Plain and simple - Troll through ALL the results and let us know how many times ASSISTED beat UNASSITED - the answer will highlight your biased response
> 
> Cheers 
> 
> VK4TS 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Stan Stockton [mailto:wa5rtg at gmail.com] 
> Sent: Monday, 31 July 2017 11:11 PM
> To: Trent Sampson
> Cc: cq-contest at contesting.com
> Subject: Re: [CQ-Contest] CQWW Assisted - Is it just another Urban Myth ?
> 
> Here we go again.
> 
> The answer to your question has zero relevance on whether they should be combined. 
> 
> Do the results show  being assisted is a detriment like QRP is a detriment as compared to low power. If so, it's like me saying that QRP scores don't beat low power scores so why not combine those categories.  
> 
> If anyone thinks that SO scores would not be as good if those top operators used the internet to provide them a list of multipliers to work, they have no clue.  If a survey was taken of those who operate SO in serious fashion the result would be they don't want them combined.
> 
> I have yet to see any logical reason to eliminate the category other than it is difficult to enforce the rules.
> 
> 73... Stan, K5GO
> 
> 
> 
> Sent from Stan's IPhone
> 
> 
> 
>> On Jul 31, 2017, at 6:26 AM, Trent Sampson <vk4ts at outlook.com> wrote:
>> 
>> The Assisted category in the CQWW is 25 years old this year;
>> 
>> It was created because of the advantages" given to operators who were using the spotter networks
>> 
>> In all of the 25 years of assisted categories in the CQWW how many times has the world SOAB (Assisted) beaten the SOAB (Unassisted) ? - It is a trick question
>> 
>> Based on factual information is there any reason to not combine the categories ? before you answer look at the data...
>> 
>> 
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