[CQ-Contest] Polar path handicapping

Sat Mar 21 20:56:28 EDT 2020

If the goal was to be as accurate as possible with the weighting, then the polar path calcs should be based on the actual WWV A and K indices at the time of the qso.  These values are easily obtainable and constant until the next value is posted.   The polar path calculation should also take into account the Sunspot number at the time of the qso – also easily obtainable.

Why do I make these suggestion in the name of improving the scoring?  Because there is an ENORMOUS difference in the band openings or lack of them depending on SSN and A and K index values, especially at the bottom of the sunspot cycle and this difference increases with increasing latitude.

Here is a simple example form my QTH in Western CT:

CQWW = SSN = 0   A =2, K=0

15 meter is wide open to EU for hours.  Russians and Eastern Eu stations worked – exceptional bursts of spotlight propagation and rate to DL, G, I.   Hundreds of EU qsos.

But ARRLDX = SSN = 0  A = 22, K = 3

15 meters dead except for a weak SA/Carib.  Maybe a skewpath I or S5 or CT1.  Possible brief scatter opening with 30 – 50 q’s in an hour.  Maybe.

The difference was the A and K indices, especially when SSN = 0.

But in W3 it was different.  Marginal and better opening than me to SW EU and for longer.

If you only take into account Latitude/Longitude and polar path angle then you are missing an important factor in making the score fairer – you must take into account geomagnetic cndx too which can be far more important than distance.

73

Bob, KQ2M 

From: ktfrog007 at aol.com 
Sent: Saturday, March 21, 2020 7:46 PM
To: kq2m at kq2m.com ; cq-contest at contesting.com 
Subject: Polar path handicapping

In 2011 Pat Rundall, N0HR, shared some thoughts on polar path calculations for distance scored contests:

After reading many posts on this, I decided to create a scoring system that
would incorporate both distance and polar path. To do this, I simply used
Excel with the data from the CTY.DAT file to get lat/lon and then calculate
distance from a known point and the polar path. Users can test it with their
own QTH and tweak the effect of distance and polar path as they wish.

The default scoring method gives a score of:

QSO points = 1 + distance points + polar path points

where distance points = point to point distance in km / 5000
and polar path points = 3 * (max latitude of the path/90)  (for QSOs where
the longitude differs by more than 90 degrees)

He also provided the proof-of-concept Excel file. 

The calculations do not take into account solar conditions or any other considerations.    

The calculations are from your station coordinates to the CTY.DAT central location in each DXCC countrry.  This is too coarse a resolution for a final system.  Ideally, both ends should be station coordinates.

>From the Excel program I get 5.58 QSO points from my Boston QTH to Japan.  From Houston it's 5.00 points.   The path lengths are almost the same:  10,750 km vs 10,768 km.

I don't know if Pat has updated or further developed this idea or where to get his files now.  If they are not available from N0HR, I have copies of the 2011 files.

The path forward I see for distance scored contests is for a given contest to be scored twice, first in the traditional way and again with an unofficial distance scoring algorithm.  The latter could be tweaked or revised each year until we get some kind of satisfactory result.  And consensus.  That might be asking a lot.

73,

Ken, AB1J

-----Original Message-----
From: Bob Shohet, KQ2M <kq2m at kq2m.com>
To: cq-contest <cq-contest at contesting.com>
Sent: Tue, Mar 17, 2020 12:58 am
Subject: Re: [CQ-Contest] Contest within a contest

Over the years, I have found that the greatest variability in path utility comes not from the distance involved, but rather how much of that path passes through the Northern auroral zone.

When geomagnetic cndx are quiet (A = 2 or less, K = 0)  VE6JY and KL7RA can run EU stations at EU sunrise on bands where I can’t even hear them.    But when cndx are disturbed ( A > 35 K > 4) they are in a “black hole” and I can still work some EU (though with difficulty), but the Southern W5’s  own the band.  And while K0SR might be equidistant from Europe compared to a Southern W5, his path certainly isn’t equivalent.

There will always be inequities in contest scoring and distance scoring is one way of addressing them, but I think that points scoring based on auroral path characteristics combined with distance might potentially be the fairest of all. 

73

Bob KQ2M

From: Denis Pochuev K7GK 
Sent: Monday, March 16, 2020 5:39 PM
To: cq-contest at contesting.com 
Subject: Re: [CQ-Contest] Contest within a contest

Tor,

Yes, inequities within the zones are a problem. I'm quite familiar with it, though in a different context, having contested from the Pacific Northwest and the Bay Area, both at the western edge of Zone 3. You simply cannot compete with Arizona from any of those locations in a DX contest.

The main motivations for the scheme I proposed are the overlooked inequities in distance-based scoring. Those are glaring. For instance, let's take Vienna as the proxy for Europe, roughly in its geographical center, even though such center is somewhere near the Slovak-Ukrainian border. Seattle, Dallas and Miami are roughly equidistant from Vienna, using the great circle distance as the measure. I think it's pretty obvious that the difficulty of a contact for those 3 paths varies greatly, pretty much regardless of the band.

One cannot assume that distance-based scoring will make things fair. It will simply will replace one set of inequities with another.

Denis - K7GK/6

________________________________
From: CQ-Contest <cq-contest-bounces+k7gk=hotmail.com at contesting.com> on behalf of RT Clay <rt_clay at bellsouth.net>
Sent: Monday, March 16, 2020 8:50 AM
To: cq-contest at contesting.com <cq-contest at contesting.com>
Subject: Re: [CQ-Contest] Contest within a contest

Denis,

I think your scoring scheme has a critical flaw:  the points for each qso depend on basically arbitrary zone boundaries, and the zone boundaries in some cases divide up countries with lots of entries (like the USA). For example, a station on the western edge of zone 5 would get 3 points for working Europe in zone 14. A station one mile away in the eastern part of zone 4 gets 4 points for the same contact.

The IARU contest also has this problem because of the 1 point/3 points for same/different zones. I live in western zone 8 close to zone 7. There are many more zone 8 stations active than zone 7 stations in IARU. If I was just a little further west my score would go up significantly.

Tor N4OGW

On Sunday, March 15, 2020, 9:13:56 PM CDT, Denis Pochuev K7GK <k7gk at hotmail.com> wrote:

I have outlined an alternative scoring proposal for CQWW quite some time ago in our club's newsletter. It is mostly distance-based and doesn't require any changes to the exchange or additional grid square information.

Details are here (pages 13-17): http://nccc.cc/jug/2016/07Jul2016.pdf

I would be interested to hear opinions about this scoring scheme.

73, Denis - K7GK/6
P.S. It still doesn't address the issue of the UBNs not being available to the scorers of contest-within-contest.

________________________________
From: CQ-Contest <cq-contest-bounces+k7gk=hotmail.com at contesting.com> on behalf of Richard F DDonna NN3W <richnn3w at gmail.com>
Sent: Sunday, March 15, 2020 6:53 AM
To: k5zd at charter.net <k5zd at charter.net>
Cc: ko7ss at yahoo.com <ko7ss at yahoo.com>; CQ-Contest Reflector <cq-contest at contesting.com>
Subject: Re: [CQ-Contest] Contest within a contest

WPX is kind of one of the only contests where you could do scoring on grid
locator.  And even then, not so reliably.  Behavior in contests is very
much points driven, and contesters make very strategic decisions based on
maximizing points.  In WPX, 40 SSB from the midwest and east is a gold mine
when antennas are pointed towards EU.  How you would score based on
distance could be quite different given that from New England, stations in
California aren't a heck of a lot closer than a station in the UK.  But for
now, that UK station is worth 6 points versus 1 point for California.

73 Rich NN3W
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