[UK-CONTEST] IOTA - to run or not to run....

[Andy Cook, G4PIQ]

Yep - I have to agree Lee, and am sitting wondering about the same thing - I
definitely screwed up this year. I think for 12 hour entrants in particuar,
S&P needs to play a big role - maybe a bit less for 24 hour, and if you're
really good at SO2R less still. In reailty, doing S&P you may avarage 10
pts/Q, and running say 5 pts/Q, but the impact of extra multipliers found
doing S&P is interesting. I spent a little time doing S&P, but I think not
enough.

I have tried to post some stuff earlier, but its lost in my mail forwarding
service. I'll send it direct again now.

Andy, G4PIQ.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: uk-contest-admin at contesting.com
> [mailto:uk-contest-admin at contesting.com]On Behalf Of Lee Volante
> Sent: Friday, January 01, 1988 12:51 AM
> To: uk-contest at contesting.com
> Subject: [UK-CONTEST] IOTA - to run or not to run....
>
>
> Hi again,
>
> A lot of folks have been talking about their rates achieved
> during the IOTA
> contest.   Having seen scores come in on 3830, and sitting here with a
> calculator pressing "times 3" and "divide by 15" a lot, I'm
> now beginning to
> wonder if I should have done any running at all.
>
> For single ops, unless you can run at a good rate, and / or
> have listening
> capability whilst running, I've got a sneaking suspicion that even a
> moderate proportion of running does not produce a good enough
> overall score.
> IOTAs and mults by themselves will generate a good score -
> you do not need
> high volume Q's also.  n.b. This does not apply to multi-ops
> who do need to
> do both of course !
>
> The World entrants know to get a good score you must S+P for
> perhaps 80 or
> 90% of the time.   I think that most single op Island entrants would
> probably need to do the same too.   Try it:   Perhaps halve
> your QSO score,
> and add just 25% more mults (and perhaps bumping up your
> pts/Q a little to
> be realistic.)   We know the mults were out there somewhere
> so it's not an
> unfeasible figure !
>
> There were also a time when in S+P mode when I actually
> wondered if it was
> worth my while (time wise) to stop and call a non-IOTA
> station - consider
> how long it would take to work a dozen mainlanders, and then
> consider just 3
> IOTA's would net the same points.   And if just one of those
> IOTAs was a new
> mult it there's no contest (excuse the pun......)   This
> didn't seem quite
> right.
>
> I know it's the rules and this is an old argument that gets
> kicked off every
> July but I can understand the World stations frustration !
> I know the
> emphasis is meant to be on working IOTA stations, and not
> World working
> World, but I'm an Island entrant who's about to consider
> almost complete S+P
> next year !  It certainly makes things interesting anyway.
>
> It must be possible to statistically work out - considering
> the number of
> IOTAs that would call on average anyway, and the average rate
> of pure IOTAs
> worked during an S+P session, you could calculate the
> Q's/hour you'd need to
> make it worth your while.  :-)
>
> I found it a psychological test - I could hear stations
> running high rate
> pileups, and giving out huge serial numbers, so there is a
> great pressure to
> jump in and do the same thing.   It was difficult to realise
> a completely
> different strategy might be in order, depending on entry
> class, location,
> IOTA rarity and amount of wellie available.
>
> The leading single op island scores do generally show high QSO totals
> relative to mults so the results in practice don't quite bear
> it out, or
> maybe it's just that no-one's been that brave yet !
>
> This is not meant to be a flame against the contest or the
> rules - just an
> observation.
>
> Lee G0MTN (now with strategy pondering induced headache)
>
>
>
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