[VHFcontesting] Concerning EME in the UHF contest....

[Marshall-K5QE]

Hello everyone....I want to assure everyone that the proposed new rules 
for the UHF contest were NOT set up to discriminate against me.  Thanks 
for the spirited defense, but in this case, no defense is needed.

I have not entered the UHF contest for several years, so I am not a 
factor in that contest.  I used to enter the contest when I had a few 
rovers out and about in our area that I could work. For whatever reason, 
all my rovers quit, so essentially there is no one for me to work.  
Without the rovers, there must be at least 4-5 stations that I can work 
on 222 and / or 432.....and these are 250-300 miles away.  We just do 
not have the population density here that the East Coast has.

I was a (small) part of the working group on Distance Scoring. I 
provided several real logs with a mixture of EME and tropo contacts for 
the committee to use for modeling.  These logs proved that EME 
overwhelms any other method when distance scoring is the metric.  As a 
possible solution, I proposed a "sliding scale" formula for really long 
distance contacts.  This would include EME, nEs, Au, TEP, and whatever 
other mechanisms produce really long contacts.  If F2 ever comes back, 
we would probably have to include that too.....  Unfortunately, this 
idea never gained any traction, partly because it was difficult to find 
a formula that seemed to work.

As an example, at one time, the 2M Sprint was distance scored.  There 
were stations on the East Coast with 180 contacts(in 4 hours)....I had 
only 28 contacts.  However, the shortest of my contacts was about 4500 
miles to EU, while the longest was a bit less than 10K miles to ZL 
land.  It does not take too much counting on fingers and toes to see 
that the EME score just blew everything else away.  I purposely did not 
enter that contest again while it was distance scored.

The EU contests ban EME because many / most(??) of them are distance 
scored.  Apparently, they cannot find any way to make EME and tropo 
co-exist either.

Because the other contests are NOT distance scored, EME gives me a way 
to compete that is fair to all.  Anyone can put up an EME station these 
days, so everyone has the same chances.  A grid in EU is just as 
valuable as a grid in PA, so that is fair as well.  Distance scoring is 
NOT a panacea for any perceived problems in VHF contesting.  I would 
hope that everyone would understand this.

My idea is to leave the major, well established contests as they are 
now.  The new assistance rules have solved all or almost all of the 
previous problems there.  I love the new rules and I commend the 
committee for their efforts there.  The committee can let the UHF 
contest "test the waters" so to speak.  Maybe the new ideas will turn 
out to be great....maybe not.  But changes can be made after we see what 
is not working.

73 Marshall K5QE