Warren C. Stankiewicz wrote:
>It is my contention that the sport of amateur radio contesting has enough
>barriers to entry as it is. The quest and desire for good antennas, radios,
>computers (and contest logging software), not to mention great innovations
>such as SO2R bites only a few new people each year. Instead of concentrating
>on those few bad eggs who linger around the fringes of the top, we need to
>do much more work to bring "the average ham" into our favorite part of this
>hobby, before it dies a slow, painful, ignominous death.
>
>
Bad those "few" (really few?) would allow for another kind of death of
the competetive hobby in the same way doping does effectively for
professional sports like cycling, weight lifting or 100m-sprint: the
trust in the winner and its integrity is greatly undermined and tends to
get lost. This general suspicion about every top-scorer is much worse
than the one or other single cheater escaping. Trying to have the hobby
as "clean" as possible with our limited ressources also helps in gaining
newcomers because most of them don´t want to enter something they
otherwise may start to see as a bunch of cheaters with no one willing to
stop them.
That requires IMHO more open speaking about what is effectively done,
can be done and should be done. But the kind of "publication" about i.e.
the DQ of a top-score in WWDX isn´t too good news in this respect. Same
IMHO the more or less missing debate about it (at least compared to the
packet-debate, as much as I favour the "Boy and his radio"-approach).
It´s kind of the winner of Tour de France being DQed - with media and
public taking no notice of it. Strange.
Best 73, Chris
(www.dl8mbs.de)
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