[CQ-Contest] You gotta let me know, should M/M Distributed stay or go.

[kq2m at kq2m.com]

The question and many of the responses treat this topic as though all 
stations and all groups of operators are the same, but they aren't the 
same!

If there are 6 serious ops with their own home stations who usually 
operate the particular contest and they decide to do a M/M, then YES, 
the number of callsigns and prefixes available in the contest will  
decline in THAT contest if they operate M/M together.

OTOH, if there are 6 casual and/or inexperienced ops who don't have 
their own stations (or very modest ones) do a M/M from a BIG station, 
then it is likely that there will be an overall increase in total 
contest qso's by doing that multi; or at least very little, if anything 
will be lost by them doing that multi.

You can't reduce the number of available stations to work by doing a M/M 
if there if the op has no "station" to operate from. Or, it is the 
station is very challenged and the opr would not bother even get on 
anything, then nothing has been lost.

Another possible reason to allow M/M is that especially with 
casual/inexperienced ops, they might not operate the contest anyway, 
but, by giving them a taste of what it is like to operate the contest 
together (sort of) from a BIG station, they then get hooked and become 
active in the contest in the future whether from their own station or 
from another. That will be a long-term net BOOST to contest activity.  
Since many contest ops got their starts operating at Multis, this seems 
like a promising route to keep open and nurture.

Although I didn't start out by operating contests at a multi, many of my 
most memorable and enjoyable contest experiences came from operating 
multis; which of course were in person until recently.  And since one 
universal characteristic that almost all humans (and contest ops  LOL!) 
share is the desire to congregate and socialize, this seems like a 
natural draw even for the younger crowd. Even if they are not operating 
physically together they are operating together and communicating with 
each other and building that bond to each other, the station(s) and the 
contest.  On balance that seems like a pretty good thing to me

73

Bob KQ2M


On 2021-06-02 22:17, Michael Adams wrote:
> My vote is: If it increases the fun, do it.
> 
> While I understand the logic of the argument "it reduces the number of
> available stations to work", that argument relies on the assumption
> that participants in a M/MD operation would have been on the air at
> least as much as discrete stations than they are as contributors to
> their M/MD efforts.
> 
> I am skeptical of that assumption.
> 
> Personally, I know that my butt-in-chair time is increased when
> "contributing to club score" is my objective.  I assume that at least
> some M/MD operators would have an analogous sentiment in such
> operations.  And if I'm not mistaken, in the case of WW1X operators
> were active when they might not otherwise have been.
> 
> It might be interesting after a post-pandemic contest that permits
> M/MD to survey participants at such operations and/or compare their
> participation levels to prior runnings of that contests.  That might
> shed more objective insight as to whether the class increases or
> decreases the aggregate Q total (and thus whether fun is increased or
> decreased).