[SECC] 2021 Georgia QSO Party

Fri Jan 8 07:59:36 EST 2021

 Jeff,
I'm a recent participant----last 3-5 years-----Phone only.
I like the roll back to 2019 rules----go for it.
I would play FT8 if it were available,  I don't expect it for GQP, and that is not a problem.
Thanks for your hard work ----Steve   K4ELI
PS----I am slowly working on CW skills------I am a 'code' General from the late 70s and never used it then.    Its hard going for an 'ole man.

    On Thursday, January 7, 2021, 08:35:15 PM EST, ku8e <ku8e at ku8e.com> wrote:  

 Bill
I don't worry about software developers changes because I have a program I wrote that calculates the score of everyones log. I could post something on the N1MM reflector and they would make changes in a couple days.
Personally I don't think it matters to most people if we count multipliers once or per mode. CQP counts multipliers only once and it doesn't hurt their activity. After feedback I'm thinking of just rolling back the rules to what we had in 2019, before COVID-19. 
Jeff

Sent from my Verizon, Samsung Galaxy smartphone

-------- Original message --------From: Bill Coleman <aa4lr at arrl.net> Date: 1/7/21 6:51 PM (GMT-05:00) To: Jeff Clarke <ku8e at ku8e.com> Cc: secc <secc at contesting.com> Subject: Re: [SECC] 2021 Georgia QSO Party 
I’ll give you more feedback, even though anything I say is going to be reluctant to change and predictable.

If you read my message carefully, you’ll see that I did not offer opinions on any of the rule changes other than the first. So, here’s more.

- The Multi-op rule seems a practical response to the Covid-19 situation. 

- Consider carefully the magnitude of the change in scoring for bonus stations. I agree that we don’t want someone to win just because they worked just the bonus stations. That’s anathema to the spirit of the contest. A one-time bonus does make more sense in that light. Is 500 points the right value? What’s the typical number of points people earned in the past? Perhaps something close to the average number of points for those working bonus stations. You have the data to figure out what that might be.

Making this change does have the problem that the software authors won’t have time to make the scoring change.

- And I’ll return to the question of counting multipliers once for each mode — what is the purpose of making this change? You failed to explain that. Know the purpose of the change is important (more on that in a bit)

I thought my response was carefully thought out that any comparison between Mixed and CW or Phone scores is immaterial since they are in different categories. Having the possibility of dual multipliers adds a layer of strategy to the Mixed entries that the single-mode folks done have.

And, I’ll reiterate that making the change gives little time for software authors to make scoring changes.

OH, and since we are speaking of rule changes, it is a little odd that we only allow CW and Phone operations. Digital contacts are very popular, what with RTTY, PSK and FTx. Should we consider allowing digital operations?

—

On the subject of rule changes, let me give you a story of my experience as a Taekwondo referee. Back in 2018, World Taekwondo (WT) made some rule changes for Kyorugi (sparring) to try to make it less boring. A lot of fighters were striking and clinching, waiting for the referee to break them and re-start. I refereed some matches like this, one where a couple of kids clinched over 60 times in a 3-minute match. Boring.

WT changed the rules and said that referees should wait 10 seconds before breaking the clinch. This was to give the athletes time to resolve the clinch on their own. This largely worked, but those that weren’t willing to resolve, it made MORE boring. 

Then they changed the rules so that any kind of clinch was considered a holding/grabbing penalty. Athletes didn’t like that, because it was hard to break their old habits. I had one match in North Carolina where two very experienced athletes received about five penalties each. And the result was also boring. Then they allowed certain types of clinches, but others were holding. Then they changed it again.

In the end, they adopted a rule that was pretty much like the old one — giving the referees some discretion to break early (so those ahead don’t force a clinch to try to run out the clock like with the 10 seconds), or letting the athletes work it out if there are indications they are resolving it. 

But it certainly made it hard for both athletes and referees because they kept changing the rules every couple of months. 

Moral: Rule changes should be considered and adopted with extreme care. 

> On Jan 7, 2021, at 2:45 PM, Jeff Clarke <ku8e at ku8e.com> wrote:
> 
> I'm looking for more feedback about the GQP rules. I feedback I've got so far has been to keep it the way it is. Unfortunately the only responses I've received were from long time SECC members that have always been set in their ways and are reluctant to make changes to anything. So their responses were predictable.
> 
> Here are some statistics from 2020:
> 
> CW Entries : 181
> 
> SSB Entries :  219
> 
> MIXED Entries: 244
> 
> Total CW QSOS : 31275   (Note: In a normal year when we have rovers you could probably add 5000+ QSOS to this total)
> 
> Total SSB QSOS: 30983
> 
> 
> I would like some more feedback before I make up my mind.
> 
> 
> Jeff
> 
> 
> On 1/6/2021 09:49 PM, Bill Coleman wrote:
>> Counting multipliers once per mode only affects mixed mode scores. Those scores are judged in separate categories, so they aren’t comparable to CW or Phone-only scores.
>> 
>> If multipliers only count once, then there’s little incentive to work the other mode. That might have a deleterious effect on Phone entries.
>> 
>> Further, if you change the rules now, there’s not a lot of time for the contest software authors to change how their scoring works. A lot of folks might be scoring their entries the wrong way.
>> 
>> My advise is to leave counting multipliers the way it is.
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> I didn’t realize that W4AN and W4NT were special bonus stations. I don’t know how I missed that.
>> 
>>> On Dec 28, 2020, at 2:09 PM, Jeff Clarke <ku8e at ku8e.com> wrote:
>>> 
>>> The Georgia QSO Party will return to being a two day event in 2021.  The Georgia QSO Party is held annually the 2nd full weekend of April. There are two operating periods: 1800Z (2:00 pm EDST) Saturday until 0359Z (11:59 pm EDST) and Sunday and 1400Z (10:00 am EDST) to 2359Z. (7:59 pm EDST).  For 2021 that will be April 10 - April 11th.  Note the URL for the webpage has changed to https://gaqsoparty.com/
>>> 
>>> I've been contemplating making some changes for 2021 :
>>> 
>>> • Counting multipliers only once and not per mode.
>>> • Since COVID-19 will probably not be over by April continue to allow Multi-Ops to operate from more than one location. These locations need to be in the SAME COUNTY.  You also need to still follow the rules for Multi-Single and Multi-2 that are listed in the rules on the GQP webpage.
>>> • Continue to have W4AN and W4NT as bonus stations. I will probably just get rid of the 100 points per QSO and make it one point value for just making a QSO - Maybe 500 bonus points.  I would like both these stations to be operated from just one county. Maybe as a Multi-Op.
>>> • Also note rover operations will be allowed again.
>>> I'm also asking everyone to please read the rules. The SECC and SEDXC aren't eligible for the club competition but I still get many logs that list both of these clubs. Also make sure the Cabrillo file that you submit is correct. N1MM Logger Plus is pretty reliable in generating it correctly but others aren't. I'm requesting feedback before I make these changes. Please send me your comments.
>>> 
>>> Jeff KU8E
>>> 
>>> GQP Contest Director
>>> 
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>> Bill Coleman, AA4LR, PP-ASEL        Mail: aa4lr at arrl.net
>> Web: http://boringhamradiopart.blogspot.com
>> Quote: "Not within a thousand years will man ever fly!"
>>             -- Wilbur Wright, 1901
>> 
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Bill Coleman, AA4LR, PP-ASEL        Mail: aa4lr at arrl.net
Web: http://boringhamradiopart.blogspot.com
Quote: "Not within a thousand years will man ever fly!"
            -- Wilbur Wright, 1901

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