The reason these things don't go away is that they are not being solved
or really addressed.
I believe that cheating has gotten much worse recently and much of that
has to do with the less than severe penalties being dished out. People
are serious about winning and recording the contest but when it comes to
bans we seem to lack the fortitude to do it. Instead, we give them a
warning, and let them right back in.
Cheaters need to be squashed like bugs. People rarely change and these
types of people will find new ways to cheat and laugh about it until
caught.
On 5/26/2015 6:45 PM, Gerry Treas K8GT wrote:
Thanks Ward for your calmly reasoned explanation that you also sent to
the reflector some time ago..
What was it, about 2 years ago when this same discussion was raging?
Seems that no one was listening then and are not remembering all that
2 years later.
I understand why some are hoping for a better way to "level the
playing field", but we contesters know about propagation, both regular
average differences and the shorter term variations. There are
different types of propagation from locations at higher latitiudes
than those from lower latitudes to a location the same distance away.
Distance scoring doesn't help there.
I wish that there was a way, but there isn't a simple one.
Your suggestions are one way to approach the problem.
73, Gerry, K8GT
On 26-May-15 13:56, Ward Silver wrote:
In any contest on bands for which there is a skip zone,
distance-based scoring will not work. Imagine how hard it is to work
a station on 10 meters 200 miles away by backscatter compared to,
say, 2500 miles away by F2 skip. Distance-based scoring works on 160
and 80, sometimes it would work on 40, mostly it won't work on 20-10
or 6 meters. It might be worthwhile on 2 meters and higher-frequency
bands.
Nor is there a handicapping system that equalizes the vagaries of
propagation between wildly different locations that is not in itself
wildly complicated. Believe me, I've tried over the years to imagine
a system that would actually work. They would have to be redesigned
every single year and then be adjusted based on propagation during
the actual contest. Perhaps there's a doctoral thesis or two in
there but not a contest scoring system.
My opinion is that regional-based reporting and operator comparison
works a lot better and is actually close to comparing apples to
apples. The WRTC qualification systems move in that general
direction although for really big regions (Africa, Oceania, etc)
there isn't enough granularity to achieve the desired purpose. Think
about a sort of RRTC - Regional Radiosport Team Championships.
If we put the amount of energy spent chasing impossible weighting and
scoring systems into recognizing the really great efforts and
accomplishments among regional peers, it would benefit everyone.
Sponsor a regional plaque or a regional competition or contribute a
regional writeup to the sponsors or create a regional rating system -
all quite doable, costs little, promotes the contest, recognizes good
efforts - what's not to like? Of course, that would require *us* to
do something instead of the sponsors :-)
73, Ward N0AX
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