Ed N1UR wrote:
> One of the biggest shocks to me coming out of the dialog on skimmer is the
> realization that people are routinely using CW decoders to do CW
> contesting and somehow considering that "unassisted" already. Of course
> skimmer is an even more information rich version of that, so "what's the
> big deal?".
>
> I'll tell you what the big deal is...you shouldn't be in the unassisted CW
> class of any contest (my opinion not a rule interpretation) if you can't
> copy the code yourself.
>
> Some will say "won't that offend those who can't decode by ear?". In my
> opinion, no it shouldn't, no one is saying they can't participate, they
> just do so in the appropriate class. Do wheelchair athletes feel offended
> that they have to compete in a marathon in their own class? I hope not.
>
> So to put an easy end to the "skimmer debate" all we have to do is say the
> following: Unassisted - No use of CW decoders of any kind or DX alerting
> assistance of any kind.
>
> Clean, simple, end of debate on skimmer. Opens a new one on generic use
> of CW decoders which I believe is long overdue....
>
> Ed N1UR
A lot of common sense there from N1UR. I have also been very surprised to
learn
that there are people operating contests with CW decoders. I have seen no
real data so I can't judge just how common this is. I suspect that it is
rather uncommon, but hopefully I am wrong. Why "hopefully?" Because the
use of CW decoders could actually lead people into discovering just how much
fun CW is, and I think we should actively encourage their use. If a person
wants
to enter a contest using a CW decoder, it presumably means more contacts for
everyone. And presumably the user understand how much fun we are having
down in the CW portion of the bands and wants to join in the fun. Just
maybe some of these CW decoder userss will begin to recognize characters and
figure out that learning the code is really quite easy and a lot of fun.
(As someone who has spent a significant portion of his life trying to learn
a couple thousand Japanese characters, the task of leaning less than 50
Morse characters doesn't seem like much of a challenge to me.)
As Ed says, the use of a decoder should by definition put someone in the
assisted category. But I'm not that concerned about this because I just
can't imagine that someone using a CW decoder could do very well in a
contest.
But Skimmer and CW readers are very different animals, and should be
discussed and considered separately. I agree with those who believe that
the use of Skimmers should be considered assistance. I sure would not want
to have to compete against someone using a Skimmer in SS, for example. If
Skimmers really do what they are said to do, my competitor would have a huge
advantage in finding VY1 and the other rare sections and in finding new Q's
to work on Sunday. About the same or even a greater advantage as packet. I
don't want to be forced into using a Skimmer just to stay abreast of my
competitors.
73,
Hal W1NN
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