Topband: Improving the Fabulous CQ 160 Contest

[Richard L. King]

Sending your grid square would certainly make getting an accurate 
exchange during the contest harder. Since any 160M contest is an 
exercise in weak signal work, most scores would go down. Plus there 
will be more score reductions due to copying errors in our logs.

That's OK, but we already have the Stew Perry Contest that offers 
this challenge.

I don't know if many of you remember when the exchange for the CQWW 
160M CW contest was a progressive serial number? The exchange was 
just like the WPX contest exchange (example: "599137 and then 599138 
and so on").

That made QSOs with weak signals really hard to copy and sometimes 
required a lot of repeats to get it right. It was such a problem that 
the contest chief (N4IN then I think?) changed the rules to stop the 
usage of serial numbers and move to the present exchange we had up 
until last year of sending state and country. That rule change was 
made in the late 70s or early 80s I think.

Do we really want to go back to that sort of exchange? I don't know, 
but it is something to think about. There will be good arguments on 
both sides of this question. There will always be differences of 
opinion of what, exactly, constitutes a "good" QSO on 160M.

73, Richard - K5NA