While you adjusted for geography, you failed to account for population in each
quali area. The advantage swings toward W2 which has relatively less number of
competitors leaving the top guys more chance to grab max points.
I think we have had enough wrtc experience now to know that only a few very
active ops from big stations in a region really have any chance to qualify.
Doesn’t matter that much how you slice it.
Randy k5zd
> On Oct 26, 2023, at 9:23 AM, Lee Volante <g0mtn1@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Hi everyone,
>
> Thanks for the question and the answers given. Please let me share some
> background to hopefully help with this discussion.
>
> When writing the selection criteria for WRTC 2026 the organising team of
> course looked at several earlier WRTCs as a guide. Many details have stayed
> the same, with most of the changes made being in proportion to the team
> numbers or reduced qualification period for the 2026 event.
>
> For this particular question, we saw that WRTC 2022 put W1 and W2 together
> in an area. WRTC 2018 had one area for W1, W2 and W3. WRTC 2014 had 1 Team
> Lead (TL) position separately for W1, W2 and W3. There is no commonly
> agreed approach that everyone will agree on.
>
> The main arguments are:
>
> With 3 TL positions for W1/2/3 as a group, there is feedback and evidence
> that it is disproportionately more difficult for entrants from W3 to
> qualify compared with W1. We see it's not impossible from past results, but
> also that it's not well balanced.
>
> With just 1 TL position for W1, W2 and W3 each separately, we have feedback
> that this can be off-putting where a 'super-op / super-station' in an area
> is assumed to nearly guarantee a position, so others may not even try to
> qualify.
>
> Many suggestions and requests for rule amendments were received (from 5
> continents) after the original criteria were published. All were evaluated
> independently, and only a handful taken forward. All rules and changes are
> peer reviewed and also approved via the WRTC Sanctioning Committee. The aim
> was to make qualification fairer for everyone in this area as a whole,
> without taking away any Team Lead positions that had been announced
> originally. We looked to find a solution for the complaints that our
> "W1/2/3 area" rule could be better.
>
> The idea is to keep the best of both worlds - everyone in W1/2/3 still has
> 3 Team Lead positions open for them to chase, but their qualifying scores
> are calculated by comparing only against those in their own local area (W1,
> W2 or W3.) For WRTC qualifying the points awarded are a fraction of a
> maximum given for the local area leader's score in the same contest
> category. At the end of qualifying each entrant's best scores are totalled.
> There might be 3 x W1's qualifying, or 3 x W3's, or a mix. We can see from
> past results that there are hundreds of contesters in each area, roughly
> equal numbers in each area, and there are enough 'highly competitive'
> entrants in each area that should make this approach viable.
>
> There's an argument that this is too complicated and some of the discussion
> here could be evidence of that. However the same approach has been used for
> Africa and parts of South America several times before so it's not a new
> concept at all, and it was assumed it should not cause confusion. We
> explained in the website post announcing the selection criteria update that
> the choice of the changes made were driven by feedback that we
> investigated, and similar change in other areas was considered but ruled
> out because of the number of contesters or other geographical
> considerations.
>
> Good Luck and Have Fun in CQ WW this weekend.
>
> 73,
>
> Lee G0MTN
> WRTC 2026 Organising Committee
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