[UK-CONTEST] Normalising scores in the tuesday night UK Activity contests

[Malcolm Bryan]

Hi Chris
I agree the rules can seem a little strange at times but however you do the
normalisation it will break down for someone somewhere. There are also
plenty of other factors that determine scoring, such as how the
adjudication is done.

I am sure someone will correct me if I am wrong but I believe the
adjudication is based on the assumption that the tx station always logs
what he sends. Unfortunately this isnt always the case and I have lost some
mults as a result of this, however, the station making the error will be
unaware as he doesnt lose points. An example

Other station sends me 55 023 io91xx. I log this but he logs 59 023 io91xx.
I send him 57 012 jo01bk and log it correctly, he receives it correctly.
When the adjudication program is run I lose the points but he gets them as
I have been deemed to incorrectly copy his exchange. This is not uncommon
with some logging programs defaulting to 59.

I suspect I have done similar to people when operating portable. If you
work a station but forget the /p, he correctly copies what I sent ie F1VNR
but I logged F1VNR/P so I get the points but he doesnt and I never know I
did it. It is particularly as issue for F1VNR as my portable and home
locators are the same!!!

I feel it would be more appropriate for both stations to lose the points
rather than just one of them. It is then incumbent on both stations to
assure the exchange is correct and if it isnt both stations know why as it
is detailed in the UBN. Perhaps the committee could consider it or is there
a knock on effect somewhere?

I add my thanks to the contest committe for doing a great job that gets a
lot of flak from this reflector.

Happy new year to everyone.

Malcolm Bryan
G8MCA / F1VNR




On 29 December 2011 02:35, Chris G4FZN
<ukcontest at mailbox01.freeserve.co.uk>wrote:

> 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
>
> _______________________________________________
> UK-Contest mailing list
> UK-Contest at contesting.com
> http://lists.contesting.com/mailman/listinfo/uk-contest
>