[TowerTalk] perspective

[Al Williams]

Those contestors using low power may be more capable operators due to having
a history of having to try harder.  On the other hand, more capable
operators may gravitate to high power for the thrill of higher
rates?  A difficult variable to asses!

k7puc


-----Original Message-----
From: wa4dou@juno.com <wa4dou@juno.com>
To: towertalk@contesting.com <towertalk@contesting.com>
Date: Wednesday, July 19, 2000 7:01 PM
Subject: Re: [TowerTalk] perspective


>
>Hi Gang,
>  I would be inclined to agree with Gerald in principle if it were not
>for the fact that you can't take the difference in scores between high
>power and low power categorys and simply divide the difference in power
>levels down and quantify the totals on a per db basis.. Oh sure, this
>does give you another way of trying to understand the differences but
>those differences are a result of a much higher power level change
>between the two, not minuite changes. For instance, if a high power
>category allows 1,000 and a low power category allows 100 watts(an
>obvious 10 db difference) and the differences in scores between categorys
>is 100 %, then you cannot say that each of those db is worth 10 % greater
>scores. The value of a db is logrithmic. The first one is virtually
>meaningless, the second one isn't worth much more, so on and so forth
>until finally the power change has become so great that the difference
>has finally begun to create statistically meaningful results. 10 db is a
>big change, it means a whole new level of performance. 5 db is a
>meaningful change, statistically meaningful results can be achieved at
>this level. 1-2 db is meaningless, you're straining the remains for the
>fingerprints of something meaningful here. I'm talking ionspheric
>communications here. 1 db is the least power change that any human being
>can discern. In fact, just barely discern. Barely means hardly. Discern
>means perceive. Hardly perceive!  This is science, not voodoo! Hardly
>perceive does not change an unreadable signal into a readable signal. Its
>a much bigger change than a db that does it. Yes, it takes all those
>little db acting in concert to make the difference. 73 Roy WA4DOU
>-------------------------------------------------------------------------
>-------------------------------------------------------------------------
>-----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>
>On Wed, 19 Jul 2000 21:13:50 EDT TexasRF@aol.com writes:
>>
>> We can estimate the worth of a system db by comparing the top
>> contest scores
>> between the high power and low power categories. I have not done
>> this for hf
>> contests but I would bet the points per db would be pretty well
>> defined. This
>> comparison would basically tell the story as related to how well the
>> station
>> is heard as receive capability between high and low power categories
>> would be
>> similar.
>>
>> Several years ago I did a study of moonbounce contest scores and
>> stations to
>> determine what kind of antenna system would be needed to give a top
>> score on
>> 2 meters. I found that in that contest 1 db would be worth
>> approximately 25
>> qsos (2 meters only). The formula is still close but varies somewhat
>> from
>> year to year depending on activity level and quality of propagation
>> conditions.
>>
>> The challenges of contesting on 160, 80 and 40 meters are similar to
>>
>> moonbounce contesting: You are dealing with quite a few marginal
>> strength
>> signals compared to the higher bands. It would seem that the dbs
>> would be
>> more important on these bands than the higher bands.
>>
>> 73 de k5gw
>>
>> --
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