I have operated from some big stations in the Northeast (W2PV, K2LE/1, K1KI, K1ZM) and from down here in the South (NQ4I) and I would say that it is extremely unlikely that a station from down here can beat one of the big stations up North.  In fact, it is surprising that K3LR and K4JA did as well as they have done.  The problem is that those big stations are just too much closer to EU than we are.  They have several more hours a day of daylight to EU than we do and they can hear the weaker level stations that we will never hear.  NQ4I has a super station with some great antennas but you can’t beat the geography.  As long as the rules stay the way they are, I doubt the outcome will change. 

When I operated from VT at K2LE/1, we could hear the guys east of us working EU an hour before us and there was nothing we could do about it.  Imagine how much earlier VY2Z can hear EU.   

But, I’m not sure that going to a distance based scoring system will make that much difference.  The Northeast will stay have longer EU openings and stronger signals.  The longer openings and the higher rates will probably still give the NE the advantage unless some sort of multiplier is applied to the distance.  Try and figure that one out.  It will be very interesting to see the results of rescoring some of the top scores from NE and elsewhere to see what the effect will be.  Let’s wait and see what that shows before jumping into one camp or the other.

BTW, has anyone thought about how the DX stations will react?  I would guess that the Caribbean will no longer walk away with the ARRL DX top honors.  How will they feel?  Will all those guys who go to V$ or PJ7 pr wherever stop going because they no longer have a chance for a big score?  If so, what will that do to activity for us W/VEs?  I would be curious to hear from N2NT, W2SC, W2GD, K4BAI and the others who make that trek to hear what they think.

Certainly there is one certainty if the rules are changed, i.e. the old scores (or the new ones) will no longer mean anything compared to the new scores.  Is that what we want?  Why not simply start a new contest using a distance based scoring and see what happens and leave the ARRL DX Test as is?.

73,

Dennis, K2SX