One can almost sense a groundswell of support for the concept of
distance-based scoring systems among recent posts to this reflector.
Repeatedly I've seen people point to the Stew Perry contest as an example of
how much fairer such a scoring system is than the conventional <mults> *
<fixed # of QSO points> format.
I have no doubt this system works well for a 160m contest. It should also
work well for a single-band 80m contest. Once you get up to 40m, though, it
starts looking a little shaky to me as a "fair" way to try to compensate in
the scoring algorithm for the difficulty for the contacts made. The reason
for this is that when 40 goes long, close-in contacts suddenly become the
more difficult contacts to make.
On 20, 15, and especially on 10 I think this system would be a disaster.
Last winter on 10 I was able to BS with VQ9QM or VQ9DX (from ZF) on nearly a
daily basis. I got one or the both of them in practically every contest I
did. In contrast, getting through to FL, GA, or SC was a major challenge.
(In fact, I recall the greatest sense of elation over getting a new mult
when I worked K4OJ and K4BAI. Guys out in N0AX's neck of the woods were a
dime a dozen for me.) I think anybody who has ever worked on a 5BWAS has
seen how much more difficult it is to get your neighboring states on 10 and
15 than it is to get to the other side of the continent.
When you get up to VHF frequencies, where distance once again correlates
closely with the difficulty of making a given contact, then the
distance-based algorithms again make sense. They are commonly in use on
those VHF contests, so I hear, and they serve them well. (I guess. I have
no interest in VHF, so have never entered a VHF contest.)
My point is that the effectiveness of such systems on low-band contests or
on VHF contests should not be extrapolated to the HF frequencies. I doubt
seriously that a distance-based scoring system for an HF contest would be
perceived as fair if one were actually implemented.
73,
Bruce, N6NT/ZF2NT
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