[CQ-Contest] Revised Proposal for an ongoing FT event #FT8 #FT4

[ktfrog007 at aol.com]

Hello,


Here's an update to an email I sent out incorrectly (wrong address?) yesterday.  Since then I got some help from Bruce Horn, WA7BMN, so this is a new and much improved version.  Ignore anything I sent earlier.

Many have remarked that FT activity is like an ongoing 24/7 contest.  That's true, except there's no real contest.  This email is a suggestion for one that some organization might want to establish. 

Since grid locs are a normal part of the FT exchange (most of the time), HF as well as VHF/UHF grid chasing has become an interest in the FT community.  Grids could also be used for another interesting activity: distance scoring.  Right now grid locs are used for distance scoring in the Makrothen RTTY, WW-Digi and the Stew Perry contests and perhaps others that I don't know about.

It might be fun to hold year-long events, competitions, if you like, that are based on the total distances worked by participating stations, summing up all their QSOs during the year.  Score listings could be based on something fun like astronomical distances (How many trips to the moon and back? Can anyone make it to the Sun?).

This would run the whole calendar year and operation would be exactly the same as normal, everyday operation.  Grids need to be exchanged or looked up in those cases where it is skipped for speed or special calls.  It spirit it is similar to the CQ DX Marathon, the UBA Prefix Hunt, N3FJP's WASC, the TBDXC Ultra-Marathon and others.  Results would be made available after the end of the year.

Last night I calculated the distance in my 2021 AB1J and W1W  logs (combined into one wsjtx-log.adi).  I loaded it into ADIFMaster, extracted the grid loc column and fed it to the ARRL distance calculator at      https://contest-clubs.arrl.org/griddistancecalc.php

After running the program, I took the results, loaded it into an Excel file and summed the distances. The result was 6,786,493 km from 1930 good QSOs with grid locs.

Does this idea have any resonance?  Even if not, it might be fun at the end of the year for interested people to calculate a yearly distance total.  I could send out a similar email at year's end to collect scores to post if anyone is interested.  

73,
Ken, AB1J