[RTTY] Not to beat the ADVANTAGE OF BIG ANTENNAS horse...

[Tom Moore]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Jerry Flanders" <jeflanders at comcast.net>
To: "RTTY Mailing List" <RTTY at contesting.com>
Sent: Thursday, July 20, 2006 9:52 AM
Subject: [RTTY] Not to beat the ADVANTAGE OF BIG ANTENNAS horse...

> WHEREAS WHEN ALL ELSE IS EQUAL, the addition of a BIG TOWER AND BEAM is 
> and has
> been proven to be a significant contesting advantage, often greater than 
> the
> High Power advantage, as shown by resultant contest scores and acclaimed 
> to
> by many top ranking MULTI-KILOBUCK ANTENNA SYSTEM participants; and...

I have known many examples of wire antennas outperforming big beam antennas 
in certain contests, locations, and propagation conditions. For instance, 
even in the NAQP, a good wire antenna with multiple lobes oriented in the 
right directions, not nearly as high as the big beam, located in the middle 
of the country, will outperform a high beam that has a low take off angle, 
narrow bandwidth with good fb and side to side rejection (a great dx 
antenna, but easily beat in a many contest environments). We could go on and 
on and on about what is equal, west coast vs east coast, being located on 
salt water, living in the midwest black hole, the north or the south, big 
beam, little beams, tower heights, height above average terrain, QRP, etc, 
etc. Every time this SO2R issue surfaces, we get all kinds of this "off the 
primary subject" diversion which I suspect is meant to do just that by some 
No, I'm not accusing or pointing a finger at any particular person. And, I'm 
confident most people firmly believe what they're saying. I just believe 
they're wrong and I have the right to say so without it seeming to be a 
personal attack or receiving a personal attack in return. No matter what, 
SO2R seems to be a super heated issue to quite a few people.  Many seem to 
think it is a personal attack on them when it clearly is not. Many will not 
listen to any reason or justification without diluting it with off subject 
issues - sometimes resulting in derogatory personal or group attacks. We all 
have the right to express our opinion and beliefs without that.

In recent years, contest sponsors have been slowly migrating away from rules 
for which violations are not easily detectable and proven. Whether or not we 
want to accept it, the drive to win ocassionally (many believe more than 
ocassionally) results in some form of cheating particularly with the claim 
of using low power when close by observers will say it was high power (but 
can't conclusively prove it). And contest sponsors just don't want the 
hassle of trying to prove or disprove anything thats not immediately and 
conclusively detectable - which SO2R vs SO1R easily is. In fact it would 
probably be the most easily detectable and enforceable rule of all.

So if we don't want to consider the SO2R issue as valid, then the next best 
thing to do is just do away with all the classes, rules, etc and just go 
with a 'anything with the most Q's wins' approach. Some contests are very 
close to that now. Yep that includes the multi multi classes too because 
SO2R entries often outperform them!  So where do we draw the line? Do 
contest sponsors draw up all kinds of rules which requires hundreds of 
hours, days, weeks and months to score? Do they try to make them just a 
little more fair by addressing significant issues (what's significant to 
who?), or just what?  Where's the happy balance?

I strongly suspect we'll continue to live with archaic meaningless rules 
that traditionally favor the big guns all at the expense of the majority of 
participants. Of course, the easy way out is if you don't like the rules, 
don't participate. And while most contests continue to show growth in total 
numbers, few are showing increases in serious competitors. Which, by the 
way, is what a contest is supposed to be all about: Compeition! You put 
together the best station you can and come compete! Eveybody is different 
and evey station is different. But be advised that contest rules don't (and 
never will) accurately and fairly have rules that could possibly cover each 
and every situation. Again, where's the happy balance?

just another 2 cents worth - take that back, make it just a single penny's 
worth! It's probably not even worth that to some.

73, Tom WX4TM