[RTTY] WPX and strategy...

[pat_f6irf]

Scott, VE1OP wrote...

>>My strategy was to beat up 20 metres and get as many high-rate 3-point EU as
>>possible, as opposed to working the low bands for lower-rate higher-point
>>QSO's...I think it worked...My avg points per qso is down a little from last
>>year, and I have a few less qso's, but the mult count is way up over last
>>year...
>  
>

Hi Scott,
Very interesting for me, because I used a deliberatly opposite strategy based 
on a high pts/q, thus on low bands...  
My point was that it might be easier to increase QSO points by 10% rather 
than multipliers by 10%... (both resulting in a 10% score increase)
To take an example if you are at avg 4000pts /500 mults resulting in a 2Mpts score, 
is it easier to add 400 pts, or 50 mults ?  of course the answer is not that 
obvious (because the 2 terms are linked - adding Q's also add mults and vice versa), 
but I think that at least for us in EU, spending more time on 80m is the right 
choice... (40m being the obvious 1st choice during night, and 20m the obvious 1st 
choice during day)


Phil GU0SUP wrote

>>One thought about WPX rules............... I wonder how much the rule about
>>mults count once, not per band, made folk sit on 20m and not bother with 15?
>  
>
Hi Phil,
This point is also interesting...yes you are right, I deliberatly forgot abt 15m!
To increase the number of mults, you have 2 choices 1) spend more time on a given band
 2) move to a band which opens new geographical areas (thus new prefixes) 
My point of view  is:  With the conditions we have at the moment, 15m has very 
little to offer => low rate, low point/Q, and limited remote geographical areas, 
with poor condx to JA and only East-Coast USA (both areas actualy better on 20m).
So for me the answer is obvious: don't loose much time on 15m (and if you have 2 radios, 
better use the second radio on 40, looking for 4 pts EU QSO's, as activity remains quite 
high even during daytime, and you can get near-stations, impossible to reach at night time 
for ex, for me south Germany, benelux, netherlands at <500kms all easy 4 pts QSO's).

All this to say, that it may not that obvious when looking at the rules, but the WPX is a 
highly strategic contest...  what makes it so interesting are 1) the band weighting factor 
2) the "off-time" periods... 3) the fact that mults are only counted once...  
Change only one of the above, and you will destroy most of the strategic aspect of this 
contest, and what makes it so interesting...

I have tried to summarize all this with graphs which I have put on my blog.
Of course I do not pretend that I found an universal answer; it also depends on  band 
conditions, and on your QTH, but  it just happened that this strategy, which I could not 
try last year due to bad weather, worked quite well for me this year...

Patrick
http://f6irf.blogspot.com/