[UK-CONTEST] Fw: Normalising scores in the tuesday night UK Activitycontests

[Rob Harrison]

Hi,

I seem to have only sent this to Chris, so it's forwarded.

Bob

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Rob Harrison" <robharrison at g8hgn.freeserve.co.uk>
To: "Chris G4FZN" <ukcontest at mailbox01.freeserve.co.uk>
Sent: Thursday, December 29, 2011 11:21 AM
Subject: Re: [UK-CONTEST] Normalising scores in the tuesday night UK 
Activitycontests


> Hi Chris,
>
> Nice to work you on Tuesday.
>
> I thought this was a bit odd too, but not being a maths wizz didn't persue 
> it. It can't be right that a couple of extra entrants one session should 
> affect the final outcome. See next paragraph.
>
> Regards the 8 out of 12, this raises the question of those that only do 
> say 4 or 5 sessions and gain more points than those who do most or if not 
> all sessions, and get more overall points than the consistant entrants. My 
> feeling is it should be a minimum number of sessions per competitor to be 
> included in the final table. Otherwise you are penalising those who 
> consistantly support the series. This would make the table hard, if not 
> impossible, to follow each month of course.
>
> 73 Bob G8HGN
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Chris G4FZN" <ukcontest at mailbox01.freeserve.co.uk>
> To: "'UK contest Committee'" <uk-contest at contesting.com>
> Sent: Thursday, December 29, 2011 2:35 AM
> Subject: [UK-CONTEST] Normalising scores in the tuesday night UK 
> Activitycontests
>
>
>> First of all, congratulations to Allan Duncan, GM4ZUK, who won the Open
>> section of this year's series of 4m UK Activity contests. He entered all
>> four of them during the year, and his final score was 17 points ahead of
>> mine. Allen always puts out a great signal from Aberdeen, in all kinds of
>> weather, and his win is well deserved.
>>
>>
>>
>> The Restricted section had an even closer finish, with only 9 points 
>> between
>> first and second places. My comments below probably apply to that section
>> too.
>>
>>
>>
>> The closeness of the Open section result has prompted me to look at the
>> system of normalising scores, and left me wondering if I am not alone in
>> thinking that the method may be less than perfect. Please be abundantly
>> clear that I have no "sour grapes" regarding the result, but below I will
>> demonstrate how the result could have been different without any changes 
>> to
>> either of our stations worked.
>>
>>
>>
>> GM4ZUK and myself each came in second place once in the series.
>>
>>
>>
>> Allen came second in May (when there were 12 entries in the Open 
>> section),
>> and gained 917 points. I came second in August (when there were 10 
>> entries),
>> and thus I gained 900 points. In each of those months, the winner 
>> received
>> 1000 points, but the runner-up and other places received a number of 
>> points
>> which depended on the number of entries.
>>
>>
>>
>> The final year score is made up from the sum of each month's normalised
>> scores.
>>
>>
>>
>> If there had been two more entrants in the August event or two fewer
>> entrants in the May event --- regardless of whether Allen or myself 
>> worked
>> them or not --- then the second place would have received 17 more points,
>> and the year's result would then have been a tie.
>>
>>
>>
>> My point is that the final result is swayed by the number of entrants in
>> each month's contest, and it does not matter if they were worked or not. 
>> In
>> August, for instance, just a couple of stations entering by only working
>> each other would have changed the entire result.
>>
>>
>>
>> Is it right that the winner always gets the same number of points each
>> month, but the scores for second, third place and so on vary according to
>> the number of entrants? Or should the actual (un-normalised) scores be
>> totalled at the end of the year, and then normalised if need be? 
>> Presumably
>> this has been discussed at length somewhere sometime, but I was not 
>> "into"
>> contesting when this system of normalising scores started, and am 
>> interested
>> to learn the rationale behind it.
>>
>>
>>
>> On a second point, why is it that when there are twelve UKAC in a year, 
>> the
>> best eight scores are used, but when there are only four (as in the case 
>> of
>> 4m) then all of them are used? Wouldn't it be more consistent to take 
>> only
>> the best three out of the four?
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> 73, Chris
>>
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>