[CQ-Contest] Who wins a contest?

[Peter Bowyer]

If I might throw my hat in the ring here...

The conversation about who-can-win-what-from-where is interesting.

There are clearly some aspects of an operation (to enter a contest)
you can evolve and improve, and some that you can't.

Gear, antennas, operator skill, tactics... all these you can improve
within the rules of a section.
Geography you can't.

We know that the rules for any given contest favour some geographies
over others.

So why do we bother comparing results of stations between geographies
at all? Surely the station that 'wins' a contest is the one that does
the best within the restrictions of the geography they're in - that's
the real contest. Doing better than the guy / group down the road, and
better than we did last year. Not comparing your score with someone on
another coast or another continent. Who cares that K3LR got 10 times
the score that I did when I outran my local rivals and beat my
personal best?

The rules should be crafted to make the contest attractive to people
who enjoy competing with their peers - not to try to make everyone
equal. That's impossible, and in my view, not particularly useful.

Peter G4MJS