Topband: Improving the Fabulous CQ 160 Contest

[Jim Brown]

On Tue, 6 Jan 2009 21:26:20 -0500, Victor A. Kean, Jr. wrote:

>For the 2010 edition of CQ 160 contest, I propose the following
>changes as followons to the 2009 changes:

>1.  Make the exchange 59(9) grid where "grid" is 4 character
>Maidenhead grid square, a-la the Stew Perry test.

Yes.  

>2.  Make the QSO point scoring proportional to distance.  You could
>take the Stew Perry scheme and scale it so that the longest possible
>QSO is 10 (or maybe 12) points.

Yes, but don't scale it -- the Stew Perry scale is quite good!  

>3.  Keep multipliers to encourage DXpeditions and pile-ups.

Dump multipliers. That's the major element that gives so great an 
advantage to those in the most populous areas. Besides -- who likes 
pileups -- it turns contests into even more of a nuclear arms race!  

Thanks for the suggestion, Victor. Overall, I like it a lot. 

73,

Jim K9YC