[CQ-Contest] New Mult for SS

[Tom Haavisto]

Hi Jim

I find this comment interesting - please elaborate.

I have a decent station on 160.  Yes - I have worked you on 160, and I
assume you were running QRP, perhaps not...

BUT - why is it MY responsibility to build sufficient RX capabilities on my
end to copy a QRP signal from W6 on 160?
There are a number of stations in ONN who don't have the same capabilities
as I have - why should they have to perform all manner of work on their
stations to copy your QRP signal?

IMHO - if you can't put enough RF into the TX side of things to get into my
log - well - not a problem for ME.
Simple solution would be for YOU to up your TX power.

You want to run QRP?  Fine.
Don't complain that I CANNOT COPY YOU, and its somehow MY FAULT!

Tom - VE3CX



> Adding those three VE3 mults meant, for example, that a little pistol on
> the west coast needs to find stations with great ops and decent antennas
> in all four sections, not just a single great op with a great station,
> like VE3EJ. John is one of three stations east of the MS I've worked
> during my afternoon during 160M contests running legal limit, and he's
> one of the few VE3s I can usually work QRP.

On Sun, Jan 5, 2020 at 8:47 AM Jim Brown <k9yc at audiosystemsgroup.com> wrote:

> On 1/4/2020 11:53 AM, Bob Shohet, KQ2M wrote:
> > Jim,
> >
> > Your reply indicates that you not read or understand my brief post
> before commenting on it.  And then you truncated it and ignored the rest in
> your reply.  I have put in bold parts of my post to emphasize what you
> overlooked:
> >
> > ”Umm...  there is NO “advantage” for the East coast (especially New
> England) contesters in SS compared to the Midwest, Great Plains, South,
> Southwest or West.  It’s actually the WORST place to be for that contest
> from a score standpoint.
> >
> > Any East coast advantages reside solely with DX contests.
> >
> > I don’t know what rule changes K9YC is talking about.  Perhaps he will
> elaborate.”
> >
> > --------------------------
> >
> > While people can disagree over your assertion that W1 contesters in SS
> can more easily work the Eastern Canada Mults 15 or 20 vs. a W6,
>
> My statement was that for SS, my opportunity FROM NorCal for MAR VE
> mults is largely limited to around my sunrise on 15M -- IF we have 15M
> propagation. Obviously stations at all locations chose bands on the
> basis of where they can hit the mults and make the best rates.
>
> (an assumption which would be largely incorrect), any possible advantage
> to working TWO or THREE more SS mults is far outweighed by the fact that
> the same op at a similar station in W6 at a similar qth, can make
> another 500 – 800 q’s on SSB and several hundred more on CW vs. a
> similar station in W1.
>
> Not quite. The stations must be there to work. Beginning 8-10 years ago,
> PVRC developed a strategy for winning SS by concentrating their activity
> on 80M, where we couldn't work each other, but where there are LOTS of
> casual operators with modest stations that they can work and we can't.
> Perhaps you might have noticed that NCCC hasn't mounted a serious SS
> effort for about that length of time.
>
> How you can think that is a W1 advantage in SS advantage vs W6 from a
> score standpoint, defies belief.  Simple arithmetic easily proves my point.
>
> ONLY if you assume that sunspots make 15M and 10M available to handle
> the traffic. And, along this line, as bands open from east to west, east
> coast stations set up shop on a frequency, so that by the time the band
> is open three time zones to the west, run frequencies have been
> established for hours, and when we try to set up shop, we have almost no
> choices.
>
> > I happen to know something about operating SS Phone having made many
> serious SOAB efforts from W1 and W2.  And, while I have not operated from
> W6 for SS, I have made serious SOAB efforts in SS Phone from both Colorado
> and Western Washington, placing near the top of the US both times with
> tribander and wire stations, something that is impossible from W1
> regardless of propagation.  It is a hell of a lot more fun to operate from
> ANYWHERE in the West than W1 in SS!  And it is a heck of a lot easier to
> work the Eastern Canadian provinces from the West as well!
> >
> > Now, I also CLEARLY stated the well-known East coast advantage in DX
> contests, which you did not even acknowledge, instead lecturing me on how
> unfair it is for A W6 vs. a W1 in the 160 M contest.  Of course East
> stations can work loads more EU than W6 on 160.  How would it be
> otherwise?  The East Coast, and especially W1 views the 160 M contests as
> DX contests, even though we work typically work about about 5x as many
> stateside as DX stations.  But what the heck does that have to do with SS?
>
> Bob, I specifically stated that I was talking about BOTH SS and ARRL
> 160, both of which seem to be stuck in perpetuity by whatever was done
> nearly a century ago when the contest started.
>
> >
> > As far as your contention that it is pointless to call anyone east of
> the Mississippi before a certain time...., that’s all about the operator
> and station, not about how many points a qso is worth.  To a top-notch
> operator, EVERY qso matters and the best operators want every single qso
> and they have designed their stations so that they can hear in multiple
> directions simultaneously.  Some operators are just lazy and don’t want to
> “dig” for stations,  but that’s on them.  Others have significant noise
> that can’t be filtered out or they don’t have directional receiving
> antennas, but again, that has nothing to do with points per qso, so that
> claim just doesn’t hold water.  I want to make every qso possible
> regardless of how long I operate.  And, on the rare occasions when I have a
> pileup on 160 and EU stations are calling, I am also aware of who is NOT EU
> and I work them seconds later.  Unless the caller is incredibly impatient
> (and some are), they can work me easily if they want to.
> >
> > And then there was this comment of yours:
> >
> > ”Any changes to contest rules that increase the advantage of east coast
> contesters seems to be OK with HQ!”
> >
> > That’s a pretty accusatory statement, especially when you did not
> specify any details about these alleged “rule changes” or when they
> supposedly occurred.
>
> There have been many. Neighbor K6XX, for example, told me about the
> history when HQ stations (and associated mults) were added in IARU
> effectively doubled the Atlantic Basin advantage.
>
> That made me curious as to what you were talking about, so I asked.  But
> once again you did not provide any specifics of these “rule changes” or
> when they occurred, instead just complaining about the point
> differential of US vs DX qso’s in the 160 M contests.
>
> Adding those three VE3 mults meant, for example, that a little pistol on
> the west coast needs to find stations with great ops and decent antennas
> in all four sections, not just a single great op with a great station,
> like VE3EJ. John is one of three stations east of the MS I've worked
> during my afternoon during 160M contests running legal limit, and he's
> one of the few VE3s I can usually work QRP.
> >
> > I happen to know something about the 160 M contests.   In the late ‘80’s
> and again in the late ‘90’s, I competed seriously in the ARRL160 and CQ160
> DX contests.  I won the CQ160 and placed 2nd once.  In the ARRL 160 I was
> in the top 2 or 3, three times, and I remember the rules, strategy and
> point scoring.
> >
> > I know that in 1986, the ARRL counted DX qso’s as 5 pts vs. 1 pt for
> US.  So this has NOT changed since at least 1986, 33 years ago.  And
> similarly for the CQ160, DX qso’s counted 10 pts each.  This has not
> changed either.
>
> Which brings up the opposite problem of unfair rules being cast in
> concrete.
>
> We have had at least ** 8 ** Presidential elections since this point
> scoring ratio of DX to US has changed in either 160 meter DX contest.
> So how many decades ago did the rule change that so offended you?  Your
> statement implies that there were far more recent rule changes that
> fundamentally altered the competitive balance of contests, and that
> simply isn’t true.
>
> I started contesting in 1957 as a high school student, took decades off
> until I again had a station in a house I rented in Chicago, then another
> couple of decades until getting back on the air from a house I had
> bought in Chicago, moving soon after to W6, so my knowledge of what
> changed when is limited. But from this limited observation point, it
> seems clear, Rules changes never happen that reduce the advantages to
> those who have them, but always increase that advantage.
>
> I didn't imply anything, Bob. You assumed what I thought. The concept of
> mults in a contest is a Rule. What counts as a mult is a Rule. How mults
> are distributed geographically strongly affects the fairness of the
> combination of the Rules. When contests start and stop is a Rule. I
> think I remember a time when it was decided that they could start three
> hours earlier so that the east coast could have more time to work EU.
> The difference in credit for a W/VE station gets for a W/VE qso as
> opposed to a QSO with another country is a Rule. The scoring system used
> by Stew Perry and Makrothen where each QSO is multiplied by the distance
> is a Rule. The scoring system used in Stew Perry giving each QSO
> additional multipliers for power on both ends of a QSO is a Rule. The
> scoring system that gives stations on islands designated part of SA 1.5
> pts more per QSO than a nearby island designated part of NA is a Rule.
>
> These Rules strongly influence every decision station builders,
> tacticians for multi-ops, and individual operators make. Everything from
> WHERE the station will be built for those with the bucks to do it.
>
> These Rules SHOULD be modified to make stations in all locations feel
> they are at least part of the same contest! But any such discussions get
> shut down with the excuse that comparisons can't be made to earlier
> contests (as if memory keyers, contest loggers, skimmers, RBN, etc. have
> long made such comparisons meaningless.
>
> But the same folks who refuse to even consider changing those archaic
> Rules are ready to rationalize the addition of multipliers that are
> harder to work for some contesters than others. And that's what this
> discussion about VE mults (and the DC mult added to a few contests) is
> all about.
>
> I love K6XX's suggestions -- the first, make all stations located in the
> European Union a single multiplier. Or, the second, if you aren't
> willing to consider that, assign multiplier credit to JA prefectures and
> VK states, at least partly compensating the huge multiplier advantage
> provided by all the geographically small countries in Europe.
>
> 73, Jim K9YC
>
>
> >
> > 73
> >
> > Bob  KQ2M
> >
> >
> > From: Jim Brown
> > Sent: Saturday, January 04, 2020 1:04 PM
> > To: cq-contest at contesting.com
> > Subject: Re: [CQ-Contest] New Mult for SS
> >
> > On 1/4/2020 7:45 AM, Bob Shohet, KQ2M wrote:
> >> I don’t know what rule changes K9YC is talking about.  Perhaps he will
> elaborate.
> >
> > Bob,
> >
> > Perhaps you (and others who don't understand) should operate SS as a
> > guest from W6. AND SS is not the only contest with RAC sections as
> > mults. There's ARRL 160, which the east coast views as a DX contest
> > working EU, and those of us west of the Rockies view as a NA contest,
> > where all the serious stations east of the Rockies are listening with
> > directional antennas pointing NE.
> >
> > Contest rules are made by human beings, and the decision to use RAC and
> > ARRL sections is (was) an arbitrary one that may have made sense nearly
> > a century ago, but doesn't necessarily now. That decision is a contest
> > scoring rule, and it defines how participants will choose to operate. So
> > is the decision to make countries multipliers, and there are roughly 5x
> > more multipliers available to those operating in the Atlantic basin than
> > to those west of the Rockies.
> >
> > To clarify what I'm talking about, I have a pretty good 160M antenna
> > farm, and do my best in 160M contests. Over the past six seasons, I've
> > heard seven signals from EU and been able to work two of those stations,
> > all during the last CQ160 and this season's Stew. I have learned that
> > it's a waste of time to call big stations east of the Mississippi river
> > before an hour after EU sunrise. This happens because of scoring rules
> > that make a QSO with a country outside W/VE worth five times more than
> > one to W/VE.
> >
> > And W6 does NOT have an SS advantage working deep into eastern Canada --
> > NorCal, where I live, gets a pretty narrow window early Sunday morning
> > on 15M where I can work these section IF they are on the air then (and
> > IF there's prop on 15M, which there hasn't been much of out here for a
> > few years). And as others have noted, propagation from PNW, NorCal, and
> > SoCal/SW Az can be very different from each other, just as FL and
> > Mid-Atlantic are different from each other and from ME/Maratime VE.
> >
> > < snip>
> >
> > 73, Jim K9YC
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