Letter to NCJ and the CAC:
Response to WA6OTU's NCJ Editorial
Mark WA6OTU raises two major points about the ARRL DX contest in his editorial
in the Jan/Feb 1994 issue of NCJ:
1. The ARRL DX Contest is unfair, in that an equal effort in building
and operating a station in this contest will bring unequal results.
2. The judging/scoring of the ARRL DX Contest has no credibility,
specifically compared with the CQ WW contests.
Mark proposes two fixes:
1. The contest results as reported in QST should show five regional
top five boxes, rather than a single country-wide top ten.
2. There should be two classes of entrants for the ARRL DX Contest,
Competitor and Participants. Competitors would be the only ones
eligible for awards, and they would be required to submit
electronic logs.
I have no problem with the first fix, serious problems with the second.
More recognition for contest efforts is better than less recognition, and
in this day and age of spreadsheets and word processors, having more top
X boxes in the contest results article certainly wouldn't be a lot of work. Of
course, just as in the existing score listing format it is pretty easy to
visually scan and do a mental regional top X, it will be just as easy to do so
to figure out who had the top score.
I suppose as a spoiled resident of the Northeast, I should also point out that
the ARRL SS, NCJ Sprints, and NQ QSO parties are unfair to me, and I should
make make a suggestion that they also have regional reporting so I don't have
to see my score compared with those in Texas and California who have such an
advantage over us in Maryland. But, I won't. If K3LR can live with seeing his
herculean efforts in SS as listed as number three, I have no reason to complain.
The splitting of entrants into Competitors and Participants is serious mistake,
I believe. First of all, I don't necessarily agree with the assumption that the
contest judging of the ARRL and CQ WW contests are very different, nor am I
convinced that either one is broken. Hell, I thought the on-site world
championships held a few years ago would be the end all of end alls in fair
judging of contest results. Now I read editorials in NCJ attempting to
calculate how many QSOs the winners made because they had more friends than
some of the other competitors. Next, I suppose someone will accuse W2GD of
hiring someone to slam K7SS's sending hand with a metal baton. (This is a joke,
guys.)
The submission of electronic logs would certainly allow the contest sponsors to
spend more time analyzing the logs. What corrections would they make that they
don't make now? How much would this really vary the sequence of the top five in
each regional box?
The key question is this: is any potential score correction worth telling a
large portion of contest operators that they are *only* participants. Remember,
for serious contesters to have much fun in the ARRL DX, we need lots of DX
stations to operate - not just DX big guns. For DX operators to have much fun
they need lots of US operators, not just big guns. If we change the rules to
alienate the casual operator, the DX Contest could turn into a giant Sprint,
where 200 "Competitors" work each other on 6 bands.
A better way would be to follow what I believe CQ WW already does: reserve the
right to request the disk of any dubious log, or those where the score is
close. Also, since the CQ WW uses volunteer log examiners, if we feel the
ARRL logs need to be looked at more closely, why not enlist the help of
volunteers. Of course, we would probably see the results a lot later, as we do
the results of the CQ WW contests.
A more important rule change would be to somehow require logs to be sent in
with 5 to 10 days of the contest. There is a lot of log fixing going on after
the contest, and there should be no reason why paper logs or disk logs couldn't
be duplicated (by domestic, DX, or DXpeditions) and postmarked within 5 days of
the contest. If the contest is ever split into competitors, this certainly
should be required of the competitors.
These are the thoughts of someone who has been a serious competitor from
multi-ops, broken the top ten only twice, and mostly participated casually. I
doubt I'll ever win a major contest, but I feel like a competitor every time I
get on in one.
John Pescatore WB2EKK
pescatore_jt@ncsd.gte.com
>From n2ic@longs.att.com (Steven M London +1 303 538 4763) Thu Jan 20 14:45:41
>1994
From: n2ic@longs.att.com (Steven M London +1 303 538 4763) (Steven M London +1
303 538 4763)
Subject: T2X Sticky Brake
Message-ID: <9401201445.AA22851@bighorn.dr.att.com>
Barry, W2UP says ....
The sticking brake in the T2X is an age old problem. It is mechanical
and has nothing to do with the voltage drop from long runs.
N2IC replies ...
I agree with the first sentence - it's an old problem.
However, it certainly is related to voltage drop. As the voltage drops,
the force generated by the brake solenoid to retract the brake decreases.
The CATS wedge design alleivates this problem by reducing the mechanical
jamming that the solenoid has to overcome.
>From Earl Morse <E.Morse@mi04q.zds.com> Thu Jan 20 14:46:51 1994
From: Earl Morse <E.Morse@mi04q.zds.com> (Earl Morse)
Subject: CT BBS not answering?!
Message-ID: <9401200946.A19373@mi04q.zds.com>
Is the CT BBS off line, down, or what? I'd like to download the latest version
prior to the VHF contest, but can't seem to get an answer at the usual number.
I know sometimes the modem gets taken offline and they forget to put it back up,
but I couldn't find Ken's E-mail address to send him a reminder. Hopefully this
message will work the same purpose. Obligatory "Sorry for the bandwidth"
message.
Earl Morse
KZ8E
e.morse@zds.com
>From Trey Garlough <GARLOUGH@TGV.COM> Thu Jan 20 15:23:25 1994
From: Trey Garlough <GARLOUGH@TGV.COM> (Trey Garlough)
Subject: CT BBS not answering?!
Message-ID: <759079405.364000.GARLOUGH@TGV.COM>
> Is the CT BBS off line, down, or what? I'd like to download the
> latest version prior to the VHF contest, but can't seem to get an
> answer at the usual number.
Try picking up the phone and calling the company that sells CT. This
company is a commercial venture. They are interested in whether you
are happy or not, because you send them money to receive this service.
> I couldn't find Ken's E-mail address to send him a reminder. Hopefully this
> message will work the same purpose.
No, this message does *not* serve the same purpose. Rather then sending a
message to Ken, who logs in about once an month and picks though his email
looking for the few interesting tidbits, you have sent a message to Ken
*and* 400 other people who don't care.
If you are interested in seeing a list of people subscribed to CQ-Contest,
send a message to CQ-Contest-Requst@TGV.COM that says REVIEW. Then you
can scan the list for the particular individual you want to contact. You
can also send a message to CQ-Contest-Requst@TGV.COM that says HELP.
Please consider your audience when you send a message. If it is intended
for one or two people, then send it *only* to those one or two people, not
to the entire group.
> Obligatory "Sorry for the bandwidth" message.
Hint: If you believe the message you are about to send merits a disclaimer
as above, then don't send it.
--Trey, WN4KKN/6
>From Michael Owen <MOWE%SLUMUS.bitnet@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU> Wed Jan 19 14:26:16
>1994
From: Michael Owen <MOWE%SLUMUS.bitnet@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU> (Michael Owen)
Subject: Did you know? [June VHF contest]
Message-ID: <19JAN94.10192906.0010.MUSIC@SLUMUS>
Friends,
I have been told by several reliable sources that the June VHF contest
was moved from its traditional 2nd-weekend time to the 1st weekend (a
much poorer time for propagation) in order to accomodate the wishes of
ONE person: Joel Harrison, WB5IGF, the Delta Division Director. You
see, he found it inconvenient to have the June contest conflict with the
ARRL convention in Dallas. Harrison even bragged about his
"accomplishment" on the 75-meter VHF net.
Is this outrageous or what?
W9IP
************************************************************************
Michael R. Owen, Ph.D. a.k.a.: W9IP
Department of Geology Northern Lights Software
St. Lawrence University Star Route, Box 60
Canton, NY 13617 Canton, NY 13617
(315) 379-5975 - voice - (315) 379-0161 (6-9pm)
e-mail: MOWE@SLUMUS FAX - (315) 379-5804
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