If by any chance this was TLDR,
"Dawg, ya gotta give us OGs some respect, or we're gonna pop ya"
73
Schnauzer Doggy Dog
Director of Homeland Security
North Pole Contest Group KL7RA
On Wed, 16 Feb 2022 18:04:34 -0900, Stephen Bloom <sbloom@acsalaska.net> wrote:
Sterling, I think conceptually you are correct, but the idea of just pulling
the scab off, let it bleed and expect that it will heel stronger in the end,
was very dismissive of the majority of the current community. As I said in
another email, there is no future without the present, and to put not too fine
a point on it, those of us with heavy time, financial, and emotional
investments in the hobby, also have the ability to pull our support. Anybody
who is taking this seriously probably has a pretty big ego. Big ego's and
being told rather than asked are a bad mix.There was a way to do this. Yes, it
would have taken longer and no doubt talked to death, but building consensus
matters. As I said, conceptually, the idea is valid, and in my own social
media, I've made it clear for awhile, that this was the necessary direction to
go, for long term growth. I'm also reasonably technically astute as far as I.T
(I make a living with it) and an accommodate most things. If I want to
Stream, I can as an example.Thing is, I don't. I support it all. I own a M/M
contest station which is as competitive as possible in a tough environment.
My fun is getting a group of ops together, to have a blast, in person. I don't
even care much for remoting, though I'm fully supportive of it. It makes
contesting possible for so many people who couldn't otherwise. For us,
streaming would change our "vibe". Enough to have me get out, probably not.
If in person M/M becomes devalued overall though, then yes I would. I'm only
one guy and the world doesn't begin or end with me, but the contesting world
would lose the KL mult on a lot of bands. There would be others as well, and
until a fully integrated Internet gaming/RF community achieves critical mass,
we'll either be a part of the process, or we'll take our toys and find some
other way to piss off the SO's, the neighbors, and local governments. 73Steve
KL7SB Chief FiduciaryNorth Pole Contest Group KL7RA
-------- Original message --------From: Sterling Mann Date: 2/16/22 11:42 AM
(GMT-09:00) To: "CQ-Contest@contesting.com" Subject: Re: [CQ-Contest] ARRL to
allow self-spotting in contests I, for one, welcome our new
insect...erm...contesting rules. This change isgood for the face of our
hobby!This might be the rule change to open the floodgates of a new paradigm
ofcontesting and a new generation of contesters. The ARRL is answering themail
on getting ham radio into more peoples' eyeballs - that is throughcontent. The
self-spotting rule is a barrier to that which makes streamershave to obscure
frequencies and operate under an ethical gray area if theywant to be
competitive and not have to submit as a check-log because,despite intent, more
people may seek to work a streamer than anyone elseand that could be perceived
as a solicitation of QSOs.This also opens the floodgates to a new type of QRM
that we know very wellin the esports/video gaming world - stream sniping.
Popular operators willcertainly draw trolls (but honestly, we already see that
today, so what'sthe difference?). It'll also be interesting to see how
self-spotting playsinto contesting strategy. Does a spot hold any weight on
"this frequency isin use!" argument when your run freq gets trampled? How much
differentwould a S&P's operator's score be if everyone self-spotted over the
currentsystem? Does search and pounce even make sense now that it's a little
morepoint-and-shoot...click-and-transmit :) Or will the band window look
anydifferent at allAnd remember, there is always a category that YOU can CHOOSE
to compete in.But if you choose to compete unlimited, multiop, or otherwise
assisted,then you might be in a new echelon. You might want to buy a webcam
andlearn how to livestream and hold an audience (yes, people watch thisstuff!).
You might want to self-spot (assuming you weren't already).I think this rule
change levels the playing field amongst those who aretruly top-10 competitive,
fixes the RBN gap,
eliminates self-spotting as asource of cheating (which is already wildly
rampant and basically invisiblewithout a lot of manual pattern matching), and
most importantly, opens abig door towards modernizing the hobby.I don't think
the ARRL/CAC/whomever conferred with the contesting community(as far as you
know) because they already knew the answer wouldoverwhelmingly be NO, and the
alternatives (like a livestreamer category,or ultra-Unlimited categories) are
too little. I'm happy the ARRL is makingsuch a sea-change. I'm sure they will
enjoy reading the comments on it (andI hope they stick to their guns on this)
but at the end of the day, theyneed to bring more hams into the hobby, more
contesters on the air, moreactivity on the bands, and more members into the
ARRL, and by promotinghigher scores, greater competition, and weaving this into
the attentioneconomy of the internet through content creation, that goes a LONG
way toinvesting in the future at the expense of the status quo.--Sterling
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