Topband: ARRL 160 and Other Inequities

[Ward Silver]

I concur with Tree that it is a good thing having three quite different 160 meter contests in the space of two months (ARRL, Stew, CQ WW) and the ARRL DX Contest if you want to do it as a single-band entry.  The scoring is different because all of them have different missions.

I also recognize that there are significant inequities in the scoring.  This makes it hard for disadvantaged areas to be noticed because the writeup authors, of necessity, have to focus on the overall competition.  What is the solution, short of changing the scoring in pursuit of the elusive level playing field?

Why not add some regional reporting as we have done for the ARRL DX  Phone and, on occasion for the ARRL DX CW?  There are plenty of people out there who have enough experience on the band to look at the scores in their areas and come up with a good summary. This won't change the overall Top Ten but it can go a long way to recognizing excellent efforts.  

The ARRL has defined several regions (see any recent major ARRL contest extended writeup at www.arrl.org/contests) that could be used as the basis for such a report. I can't speak for CQ or the Boring ARC but as the "managing" editor for ARRL contest writeups who works with each author, I can assure you that we have room on the web for regional coverage and would welcome it in any of the ARRL contests.  Drop me a note about your region of interest and I'll explain the general process.

73, Ward N0AX