[Elecraft] EQP ideas

[Kenneth E. Harker]

     Here are some of my thoughts about the EQP.  I admittedly had but little
time to operate the event, and my perspective is that of a guy who is mainly 
a phone contester, and definitely not a CW QRPer, so I may not be in the 
mainstream of Elecraft rig owners...  For one thing, when I look at the 
rules of the contest, I see several issues with them from the perspective of
the event being a _competitive contest_.  For those who just want to get on 
and work other Elecraft stations and don't really care about a score, the 
following may seem bizarre or irrelevant:

* 24 hours sure seems like a LONG time for an event of this scope.  On 
  the other hand, if you were to limit it to any less, you would 
  necessarily negatively affect some bands or paths in favor of others.
  Elecraft has a worldwide customer base, after all.  If you wanted to
  limit the time of operation (and I'm not sure you necessarily would)
  you could put a limit of 12 hours of operation during the 24 hour period,
  with off-times of at least half an hour in length.  This might encourage 
  some to take the contest more seriously if they knew that they could 
  pick and choose twelve good hours of propagation and not have to worry 
  about putting in a whole 24 hours to stay competitive.  Anyone who is 
  likely to do more than 12 hours anyway is going to be able to spread out 
  their off times to let them get the openings and work the bands they care 
  about.

* Despite the suggested frequencies, you REALLY want to explicitly state
  that the contest is only on the 160, 80, 40, 20, 15, and 10 meter bands.
  Or, you might have some lid getting on 17M and calling "CQ Contest."
  In the current rules, WARC band operation is only denied as an aside 
  in the FAQ appendix.  Personally, I think limiting the contest to 
  160, 80, 40, 20, 15, and 10 meters is best - I think allowing VHF
  operation where Elecraft rigs are the IF rig for a transverter is kind
  of a distraction from the main event.  I would be surprised if anyone
  actually made a QSO that way this year.

* The rules don't mention digital QSOs at all.  There is an implication that
  PSK31 and RTTY QSOs are not allowed because the sample summary sheet 
  in the FAQ only lists SSB and CW QSOs, and because the example frequencies 
  listed are limited to SSB and CW frequencies.  But, PSK31 QSOs are not 
  explicitly forbidden.  I think I'd mention that you can work each station 
  for QSO points once on each band on phone, CW, and digital (where digital 
  means PSK31 or Baudot RTTY.)
 
* Under categories, I think "category 2" should be redefined: "Stations using 
  other equipment for transmission and reception."  Or something like that 
  that makes it clearer that it's the rig (and not the keyer or the external 
  bandpass filters or the rotor controllers, etc.) that is the determinant 
  of category.  I would also label the categories "Single-op K1," "Single-op
  K2," and "Single-op Other" and use those labels (rather than the much less
  meaningful "category 1" and "category 2") in the descriptions of the exchange 
  and awards certificates.
 
* I'd further vote for splitting the categories by: "Single-op K1 QRP," 
  "Single-op K2 QRP," "Single-op K2 Low Power," "Single-op Other QRP," and 
  "Single-op Other Low Power," using the 5W CW/10W Phone divider for QRP/LP.

* In the current rules, it is not clear whether or not K1 owners are competing
  in the same entry category as K2/100 owners.  The Categories section of the 
  rules states explicitly that they are in the same entry category, but the 
  FAQ appendix mentions a "K2 class" that doesn't actually appear in the rules.
  Very confusing.

* I don't really like the scoring.  For one thing, there's a huge incentive to
  operate QRP, but there's no incentive whatsoever to work other Elecraft rigs.
  Someone could work 100 QSOs using 5W, not work a single other Elecraft owner, 
  and beat someone who worked 250 QSOs using 100W who in the process worked 
  200 other Elecraft owners.  That seems wrong to me, and it just encourages 
  more operators to go QRP, which results in fewer overall QSOs.

  The scoring format of most contests boils down to "QSO points x multipliers"
  where multipliers are chosen to give the contesters an incentive to work
  an interesting variety of stations.  In DX contests, this is often DXCC
  countries or CQ zones, in state QSO Parties, it might be counties, in 
  VHF contests, it's grid locators...  For an Elecraft QSO Party, I think 
  the multipliers should give operators an incentive to work other Elecraft 
  stations.  (Of course, the whole reason for the EQP is to do this, but the 
  scoring doesn't reinforce this concept.)

  My suggestion: simply put QRP and low power into separate classes so they're
  not competing against each other, and make the scoring QSOs x # of unique 
  Elecraft serial numbers worked per band per mode.  (And maybe explicitly 
  say that K1 #123 is not the same as K2 #123 - they each count as unique serial 
  numbers.)  If stations got a multiplier for K2 #123 on each CW and SSB, there
  would be a much stronger incentive to make QSOs on SSB to make a higher score.
  There would also be an incentive for stations to move around and operate
  on all the HF contest bands, rather than sticking to one band.

* I'm not sure I like the idea of letting one contestant operate the 
  contest with multiple Elecraft rigs.  This would seem to give that contestant
  a HUGE advantage over their competitors.  They can make twice as many
  QSOs simply by switching back and forth between rigs.  At the very least,
  I'd change the rules so that those who use multiple rigs must submit
  a separate contest entry for each rig.

* The example summary sheet in the rules FAQ appendix seems to imply that
  Field Tester bonus points are given per band, even though the rules and
  the FAQ itself both say otherwise.

* Cross-mode QSOs are just completely undesirable on HF.  I don't know of 
  any other contest that allows them.

* "QSOs are encouraged."  What does that mean?  How else do you score any 
  points?

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Kenneth E. Harker      "Vox Clamantis in Deserto"      kharker@cs.utexas.edu
University of Texas at Austin                   Amateur Radio Callsign: WM5R
Department of the Computer Sciences          Central Texas DX & Contest Club
Taylor Hall TAY 2.124                         Maintainer of Linux on Laptops
Austin, TX 78712-1188 USA            http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/kharker/
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