We can look forward to "Stew Perry".... Bob AA6VB
Sent from my iPhone On Nov 29, 2012, at 3:54 PM, "Jim Brown" <[email protected]> wrote: > On 11/29/2012 3:15 PM, Herb Schoenbohm wrote: >> >> >> Again this weekend the ARRL presents the worst and most unfair 160 meter >> competition ever devised. > > If you think it's unfair from your QTH, try working it on the west coast. > West coast contesters have grown VERY tired of participating in contests > where very experienced contesters operating from very good stations have not > even the slightest chance of being competitve because the scoring rules put > us at a 10:1 disadvantage. When I moved from Chicago to Santa Cruz in 2006, I > began building a station that would have been a super station if it was east > of the Mississippi, and for several years pursued contesting seriously. Each > year I entered 160M contests, each time I worked all states and added to my > list of countires worked, and each time I had the top score in SCV, a section > full of serious contesters. Not because I was that good, but because all > those serious operators had no interest in a contest they would by playing > with both hands tied behinds their backs. Think about it -- east coast > stations run 100 EU stations, a distance of 4,000 miles or less, some more in > AF and get 60 multipliers. I run 100 JAs (5,500 miles) and a few VKs and ZLs (6,000 - 8,000 miles) and get three multipliers. And maybe I find half dozen more mults in the Pacific islands, UA0, and HL. > > The same thing happens in most major contests -- the guys with stations > around the Atlantic seaboard have a great time, accumulate great scores, and > acquire the (underserved) reputations of contesting "gods" ONLY because of > where they live. And because they are contesting "gods," they dominate the > councils and committees that set the rules for contests, fight like hell > against any changes in the rules that might reduce that advantage, and go > along with anything that accentuates it. The new Ontario multipliers are > only one small example -- a far greater one is the extra multiplier in WRTC > for HQ stations, which essentially doubles the east coast advantage by > doubling the number of mults, mostly from EU countries. I've responded to > 160M contests first by running 100W, and then after making WAS in a weekend, > by operating QRP. I'm passing out the SCV multiplier only to those stations > who really want to work the west coast, who have Beverages pointed this way, > and stay up after EU has gone to bed. > > So what it boils down to is that if you want us back in the game, you've got > to work to change the scoring rules of contests so that we WANT to play. > Contest rules are from the dark ages, when it had to be done with pencil and > paper, so they had to be very simple. Thanks to the ease of computer logging > and log checking, scoring rules could take many possible forms, anything from > distance based scoring, or assigning multipliers to JA prefectures and VK > states, to handicapping by ARRL section, state/province. The Stew Perry model > is but one (pretty good) example. But if the east coast contest establishment > insists on maintaining a status quo where only east coast stations are > competitive, and where the rules don't make east coast stations even WANT to > work the west coast enough to point their antennas in our direction, you're > going to have to get used to playing with yourselves. > > 73, Jim K9YC > _______________________________________________ > Topband reflector - [email protected] > _______________________________________________ Topband reflector - [email protected]
