The idea that you will be able to unplug your speaker or headphones or
physically leave your station and run a contest on auto-pilot using the
Skimmer technology is false hope. As an operator with 40 years of RTTY
experience under my belt, there is NO competitive station that runs in a
digital contest without the aide of the Single Operator actually listening
to the band and making judgment calls as the contest progresses. Some
operators do operate "deaf", but they are nowhere near a top-10 box with
their score.
Relying strictly on technology to make all your contest decisions is a
loosing proposition.
73 de Bob - KØRC in MN
----- Original Message -----
From: "Jim George" <n3bb@mindspring.com>
To: <ve4xt@mts.net>; "Joe Subich, W4TV" <w4tv@subich.com>; "'Kerr, Prof.
K.M.'" <k.kerr@abdn.ac.uk>; " cq-contest" <cq-contest@contesting.com>
Sent: Tuesday, June 10, 2008 4:12 PM
Subject: [CQ-Contest] This is Logic?
> This, from Kelly, VE4XT, is one of the clearest and most logical summaries
> I have seen. It follows a similarly logical analysis from Keith, GM4YXI.
>
> W4TV and others argue that the ability to populate one's bandmap with
> several hundred spots of every one of the signals on the band heard from
> one location, refreshed every minute if the operator wishes, is
> unassisted.
> They fall back on the old axiom that "technology should be left alone if
> it's within the five hundred meter circle," no matter that every signal
> will ba labeled, its frequency noted with the ability to click on it and
> immediately transported there, and it that's not enough, the transmission
> is decoded so the operator is able to see when the station is standing by.
> As soon as we all using this "non-assisted" advance in technology, we will
> be offered the attractive ability to call this station automatically when
> our decoding software determines the station is needed, is not a dupe, and
> has stood by for a call. We won't even have to hear any thing from the
> station we have just "worked." Are we so foolish to allow the definition
> of
> "non-assisted single operator" contesting to follow this path? These
> voices
> argue that as long as all this takes place in the "magic circle" of our
> own
> five hundred meter circle, it's all OK.
>
> I, for one, do not and will not buy this.
>
> Jim George N3BB
>
>
> At 10:21 AM 6/10/2008 -0500, ve4xt@mts.net wrote:
>>It seems the only people now arguing that computer logging, auto-tune
>>amplifiers or the like should
>>constitute "assistance" are those arguing for the unfettered release of
>>Skimmer into the contesting
>>ethos.
>>
>>It has always been clear, spelled out in many rules, that "assisted"
>>classes refer to those operators
>>receiving spotting information (callsigns and QRGs, not merely spikes on a
>>bandscope). There has never
>>been a mention of automation of the administrivia of contesting being
>>"assistance".
>>
>>So to argue that to place Skimmer into "assisted" classes means that you
>>must also place any other
>>automated feature of a station into assisted is simply a red herring. The
>>smart readers of this forum
>>have not bought into that particular bit of seafood.
>>
>>I am not anti-Skimmer: but I do not buy the argument that our forefathers
>>intended to restrict the
>>definition of assistance only to that information coming from other
>>people. Spots are spots.
>>
>>73, kelly
>>ve4xt
>
>
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