Tom,
Your scoring system is very interesting. I really like the way you wrote
down a list of goals and started in that direction to design the scoring.
It's always hard to pick these goals and as you'll see below I've hinted at
some that may be goals you don't have listed. One of the things I find
fascinating about VHF+ contesting is that the people I talk to are in the
contest for many different reasons, some that you haven't stated. I have a
couple of other comments:
1. SCORING REQUIREMENT
Because of the complexity, I believe this would have to be scored on a
computer. As a computer geek, I prefer to use a computer, but you might
eliminate people from the contest or from submitting a log just because it's
such a pain if you didn't log on the computer to start with.
If we are going to require computer scoring (as a practical matter, anyway),
is there a reason that we wouldn't go to distance-based scoring. In other
words use 6-digit grids and use a distance-based multiplier on each contact.
If we used real distance as a multiplier of sorts, don't you think most of
the bad rover behaviors would go away? This opens up a new can of worms, of
course, because getting long distance contacts on 6m with a band opening is
like shooting fish in a barrel so some limits need to be placed on this on
that band. As a rover with bands up to 10 GHz, I have found that if 6m
opens, I drop whatever I'm doing and go to 6m. A grid on 6m is worth just
as much to me as a grid on 3456 and a lot easier to get in a band opening.
But I don't really like this about the contest. I can get grids "anytime"
on 6m, but it's not everyday that my buddies have fired up the TWT on 3456.
My most satisfying contact of recent times was a 3456 contact made during a
contest from Port Arthur area to D/FW, a distance of about 275 miles and I
was at sea level in my truck. As a rover, since I had already talked to the
other end (W5LUA) earlier in the contest, all I received was a point for the
contact (no multiplier) since it was not a new band-grid for me. Those of
you that have done things like this know what it feels like --- I don't need
to explain it --- but the contest doesn't reward us for these kind of
contacts as rovers.
Is it important for fixed stations to have rovers go to remote grids for
VUCC? If it is, the scoring should reflect this. I have been asked to
drive to the DM grids out West of D/FW (DM90-94) and do the contest from
there, but with the propagation I know my score would suffer. If I received
incentives in the contest for handing out new grids for VUCC, I would be
there in a heartbeat. I know that I could hand out a lot of band grids from
that section of Texas and I will eventually go there anyway -- I could be
competitive in the contest [my goal/fun] and hand out VUCC band-grids for
others [their goal?]. For now, I'm having fun with the competition of the
contest. But seriously folks (with all due credit to 6ACU), if this is
important to all of the fixed stations, you need to make the scoring reflect
that.
2. BEHAVIORS AFFECTED?
In most contests, there is the methodology or "points" and "multipliers."
This seems to be shared by most contests and drives strategies. The best I
can tell, your scoring is "flat" in that there are no real multipliers. So
I have to translate what this would mean for my behavior.
As a rover, what will I do different without grid multipliers? I might
choose to save gas and drive around D/FW (big city I'm near) and get lots of
non-coverage points (be the camaraderie winner??)... but would this be
detrimental for the community? I like running the contests because I enjoy
the technical challenge and I enjoy handing out grids to fixed stations that
need them for the contest or for VUCC. If rovers aren't pressing to new
grids, are there fixed stations that play in the contest to amass more grids
for VUCC that will think it is no longer worth it to be in the contest? I
don't know the answer to this but I think we have to be careful ... as the
old management tenet says "be careful what you measure." It is never as
true as it is in contesting!
I think that because this is such a wide departure from what we have now, it
may be difficult to get others to jump to this. People just seem to not
like this level of change (complete). You're much more likely to start a
new contest and rally others around it and if it turns out to be more fun
over a series of years, it will become the dominant contest. I really do
think this is a better way of introducing a new scoring system. There are
other groups playing with this also. NTMS has an annual contest now that
has distance based scoring and SBMS has an annual contest and they are
encouraging others to have their contest on the same day and make it a joint
contest. I'm sure there are others... maybe you should work with these
groups on this system and refine it. You will almost certainly have to have
someone writing logging software until it get's big enough to interest the
guys that write software to do it ...
3. PERCHANCE TO DREAM
I wish that in every VHF+ contest there were thousands of participants of
all ages, each pursuing their own personal goals in the contest. Your idea
around scoring essentially has a "contest within contest" feel to it that
caters to many individuals with differing goals. I think this is what it is
going to take to get more people into VHF+ contesting.
Suspend your disbelief for a moment and think what would it be like if we
had a scoring category that involved accurately passing short messages
around, any mode any method (I'm not tied to this and just thought of it).
Something that would hone the skills of the large public service group of
the hobby. What if we received a flood of all of these people in the
contest and had a natural way for those people to bridge from sending
messages with packet on FM to SSB contacts on other bands? If we had
thousands of participants in the FM section passing message and one of them
said "you know I can move this message farther on SSB" and they started
doing that, everyone would learn that there is mode-gain from FM to SSB.
Would we get more people in the contest that decide that it would be fun to
try 2304 SSB? Or are the public safety hounds and the weak signal
enthusiasts polar opposites? Our hobby is aging and dying while we are
arguing about scoring methodologies (a noble pursuit nonetheless). Will we
be sitting here in 10 years saying, "you know instead of arguing about the
number of multipliers we get for x and y we should have been thinking of a
way to get more people involved in this aspect of the hobby."
I know there are FMers that would enjoy what we're doing but I think they
don't know how to get here or how to get involved. Many are afraid to ask
questions for fear of looking stupid. Many think that we are all brainiacs
that know how to mold copper drain pipe into a multiband high-gain antennas
for microwave bands (well ok, some are). Would running a contest to invite
them in to our world with their equipment in a non-threatening way and
giving them awards for their performance be a bad thing? Might they say,
"you know a transverter is really not that complicated! I thought they were
these complex devices built out of ... stripline duroid PCBs or something!
Ok, well they are, but they're not complicated!"
Passing messages is probably a bad idea. I don't know what the right idea
is, but I know there are a lot of creative people in our hobby and we would
all be indebted to those who think of ways to involve more hams in our part
of the hobby. There are some ideas like this circulating around ... like
rover mania, the Rochester group is doing some build sessions, etc. that are
getting more people in the hobby.
73,
Steve, N5AC
-----Original Message-----
From: vhfcontesting-bounces@contesting.com
[mailto:vhfcontesting-bounces@contesting.com] On Behalf Of Tom Mayo
Sent: Wednesday, November 08, 2006 8:02 AM
To: vhfcontesting@contesting.com
Subject: [VHFcontesting] Contest Rules Ideas
Hi folks,
Since the reflector is swirling again with ideas on rules and scoring, I'd
like to reannounce the scoring system I thought of.
This contest scoring system is goal-based. This system was developed from
the ground up. The underlying goals of VHF+ contesting were examined and
a fresh approach to rewarding these goals was contemplated. It takes the
overall goals of VHF+ contesting and maps them to Goal Scores that are
used to determine where entrants place in the contest. Awards are granted
for the top scoring entrants for each Goal.
http://tom.2ub.org/docs/N1MU_Proposed_VHF_Contest_Rules.html
--
Tom Mayo - N1MU - tom.2ub.org
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