[CQ-Contest] ARRL DX Contest Multioperator Station Guidelines

[Hans Brakob]

Forest, meet the trees.

1) I’m not arguing the wisdom of the “plan” — I am trying to understand your assertion of “more opportunity”.
2) When I speak of 20 operators, that is not 20 butts-in-chairs simultaneously, but rather 20 butts taking turns filling 6-9 chairs over the weekend.
3) To me, 20 butts-in-chairs-at-home under their own personal call is a much better model for “more opportunity to play”.

YMMV.

dit dit

73, de Hans, KØHB
“Just a Boy and his Radio”™
________________________________
From: rjairam at gmail.com <rjairam at gmail.com>
Sent: Sunday, October 25, 2020 9:23:03 PM
To: Hans Brakob <kzerohb at gmail.com>
Cc: n2ic at arrl.net <n2ic at arrl.net>; cq-contest at contesting.com <cq-contest at contesting.com>
Subject: Re: [CQ-Contest] ARRL DX Contest Multioperator Station Guidelines

Quite simply put - several large m/m stations have canceled their operations.

By allowing them to stay at home and use the same call, but follow ALL
(every single one) of the existing M/M rules, they can still play. So,
it is more of an opportunity to play than is otherwise possible during
these special circumstances. Therefore, more will play than were going
to, because now the risk (and in some cases, government mandates) that
prevented M/M gatherings are now taken off the table.

Hope that was clearer.

Also, as I mentioned, 20 operators on at once is a bit of a stretch.
They can't have more than one signal per band, so unless they network
up everybody and interlock them over the internet there will be at
most 4-5 because that's what open bands will accommodate.

Let me ask another question - is change, especially one that is
temporary in response to a global crisis really a bad thing? Is it
that we want to stick to the rules no matter what even if it means
less enjoyment for fewer people? Or do we try to make the best of a
bad situation?

73
Ria, N2RJ

On Sun, Oct 25, 2020 at 9:59 PM Hans Brakob <kzerohb at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> I apparently didn’t do a good job of framing my question.
>
> First, we’re not discussing affiliated club competition.
>
> Now, my question.
>
> You asserted that this arrangement gives “more people the opportunity to play”.
>
> I don’t understand how that is true.
>
> To illustrate, I’ll use W0AIH as the M/M that I have experience with.  Typically Paul and Mary would host 15-20 contesters over the course of a CQWW or ARRL DX weekend.  Some would come for a single shift of a few hours, others bunked for the whole weekend and sat multiple shifts, either as a run operator or a mult/spot operator.   They came from a geographic area much larger than a 100km circle.  On average, 6 to 9 chairs might have butts installed at any given time.
>
> For calculation purposes, let’s say that 20 operators would have worked from W0AIH in the 2021 ARRL DX CW test.
>
> Under this temporary arrangement, these 20 operators will now be able to stay home and operate, all under the W0AIH call.  That doesn’t sound like “more opportunity”.  At best it sounds like “break even” at best.
>
> But “break even” is mythical in this case.
>
> 1) Not all those 20 operators’ home stations are inside the arbitrarily restricted circle.
> 2) Not all those 20 stations are “wired up” for remotely sharing their their log. (Even if they were in the circle.)
> 3) Coordinating “whose butt is in which chair on what band” (even if they are in the circle), including the ability to fill an unexpected vacant chair on the fly (equipment failure?) would seem an immense challenge, and consume the attention of one or more experienced m/m people who otherwise would be butt-in-chair.
>
> Given those and other challenges which I haven’t thunk up yet, I haven’t grasped how this scheme is congruent with your claim of “more opportunity”.
>
> 73, de Hans, KØHB
> “Just a Boy and his Radio”™
> ________________________________
> From: rjairam at gmail.com <rjairam at gmail.com>
> Sent: Sunday, October 25, 2020 7:51 PM
> To: Hans Brakob
> Cc: n2ic at arrl.net; cq-contest at contesting.com
> Subject: Re: [CQ-Contest] ARRL DX Contest Multioperator Station Guidelines
>
> A one year exception, an accommodation, just like field day where we
> allowed home stations to treat it like any other contest and added
> affiliated club competition.
>
> Look at the CQWW results on 3830 this year. Probably just going to be
> team RHR and a couple of others, and maybe some who entered M/M to
> free themselves from M/S rules. Is that fun?
>
> "As an example, a group of Minnesota Wireless Assn (Est. 1910)
> operators could all stay home and sign “W0AIH” for the weekend instead
> of using their own personal call."
>
> Except that there will be no dupes allowed, all log software
> networked, and realistically one per band. There are 6 bands maximum
> they can play on. Multiple signals on each band still prohibited, so
> realistically at most 4-5 ops at a time. It will be quite different
> from affiliated club competition.
>
> Ria
> N2RJ
>
> On Sun, Oct 25, 2020 at 8:38 PM Hans Brakob <kzerohb at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > How is that so?
> >
> > This scheme allows a group of scattered operators to operate from their home station as a geographically distributed “multi op” using a common call sign.
> >
> > As an example, a group of Minnesota Wireless Assn (Est. 1910) operators could all stay home and sign “W0AIH” for the weekend instead of using their own personal call.
> >
> > These are the same operators who, pre-COVID, would have gathered at “The Farm” for the weekend.
> >
> > How does this give “more people the opportunity to play”?
> >
> > 73, de Hans, KØHB
> > “Just a Boy and his Radio”™
> > ________________________________
> >
> > rjairam at gmail.com writes:
> >
> > > This accommodation gives more people the opportunity to
> > > play this go around.
> >
> >