Interesting discussion about remote stations.
I now run a remote station, the only way I can get on the air. When I first
started doing it, the first thing I was hit with was: You better check with
the rules, it's not legal !!!
Well, I checked with all the contesting organizations - and as long as the
remote station has the complete station, including all antennas, rigs,
controls, etc. in the same place and your section or state or zone is
located there, you are legal as long as you report in your log - your
transmitting QTH. (They just want to know where your transmitting QTH is.)
As an example, I am located in Rochester, NY and my remote station is
located in my summer/winter/hunting/fishing/contesting camp in Northern New
York, (approximately 200 miles away). When I operate in a contest I send my
QTH as NNY, or NY or whatever the exchange is for the remote QTH.
Any other use is not allowed by the rules.
So, if you work me, you worked me in NNY and not in Rochester, which is WNY,
I may be at my computer in my office, downstairs watching TV with my laptop,
in the workshop in the basement with my laptop, or out in the field or at a
picnic table with my laptop, if you work me, you worked NNY. If I am
visiting my son in Seattle, WA and you work me, you worked NNY.
Pretty easy for the contest sponsors, if you want remote in a separate
class, go ahead. There is NO way that I can contest and run stations nearly
as fast with a remote station - there is this thing called latency that gets
in the way. Latency is the delay of getting the data from one computer
keyboard (at home) to the keyboard at the station, then displayed back on
the monitor at home.
I have to have a separate phone line which is devoted to receiving audio
directly from the rig. With out this real time receiving capability, the
latency is too way too long to have a normal qso. The computer is on its
separate phone line (dial-up because we have no high speed broadband, IDSN
or cable available). (Yeh, dial up is like having an old 8088 - IBM
Machine.)
I will be doing a small presentation for the Rochester DX Association on
Tuesday evening, and have a small power point presentation on the basics of
remote operating. If you would like me to send it to you, e-mail me off line
with a request and I will gladly ship it to you via e-mail.
Paul K2DB
p.s. we run all modes and use; Writelog, N1MM or TRX Manager.
CW is the fastest and easiest mode !!!
Look at it this way, your XYL, YL or whatever thinks you are in your office
working and you are really checking out the dx-cluster and working that rare
dx you need. IMHO - a win-win situation.
Again 73 and happy remote operating.
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