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Re: [CQ-Contest] Where to Draw the Line was: Re: Does Using ViewProp Mak

To: k5zd@charter.net
Subject: Re: [CQ-Contest] Where to Draw the Line was: Re: Does Using ViewProp Make You Assisted
From: Yuri Blanarovich <k3bu@optimum.net>
Date: Sat, 30 Nov 2013 20:10:23 -0500 (EST)
List-post: <cq-contest@contesting.com">mailto:cq-contest@contesting.com>
Ham radio is the technical sport/hobby. Uses gadgets, equipment, radios, computers, antennas.....

Why is it so difficult to consider ASSISTANCE by other person, operator, human being??? We should be free to apply technology in OUR SHACK as part of the equipment. Our own antennas (within QTH definition), radios, computers, gadgets, software are part of our station and whatever they do is part of our effort/equipment. Skimmer using our antennas at our location is part of equipment.

Assistance by another operator, human being, or equipment outside of our station (via internet or whatever) remote receivers, would be ASSISTANCE and put operator/entry in ASSISTED category.

This classification would clear the ambiguity in the "ASSISTED problem" and promote use of technology in our shack and separate the assistance from the outside, which is the real delimiter.

Otherwise where do you stop at the assistance?  Internet, keyers, computers, logging programs,....???

Skimmers used at one's station would minimize the crazy pileups via internet skimmers. Why are we using internet and reverse beacons anyway? The art of hunting is diminished to hunting in the ZOO!

Just like DXCC was destroyed with NETS and LISTS, the contesting is being destroyed by weird logic and gadgets being considered "assistants".

Just my two koppeckes. Frankly, I am being turned off from my second love of contesting, just like lists and nets poisoned my love of DXing.

Can we use some logic??? What's next? Looking out of window for storm clouds is assistance???
 
73 de OF Yuri, K3BU.us
www.MVmanor.com




 
 
 On Sat, Nov 30, 2013 at 12:17 PM, Randy Thompson K5ZD wrote:
 
 > Your definition is certainly one, but I don't think it is the most common.
The traditional sense of assistance is anything (people or technology) that
helps you find QSOs.

It would make things a lot easier if we had a universal definition for what assistance means in the context of radiosport. Or if we could come up with some new words and definitions that would allow us to start over without all
of the baggage.

CQ and ARRL contests have definitions. Most of the rest of the contests have given up on the distinction. As a result, this topic has very mixed
perspectives depending on the location and age of the participant.

Enjoying the discussion.

Randy, K5ZD


-----Original Message-----
From: CQ-Contest [mailto:cq-contest-bounces@contesting.com] On Behalf Of
Rick Kiessig
Sent: Saturday, November 30, 2013 5:01 AM
To: 'reflector cq-contest'
Subject: Re: [CQ-Contest] Where to Draw the Line was: Re: Does Using
ViewProp Make You Assisted

Ultimately, the word "assistance" should have a very specific meaning: being helped by another live human, whether local or distant. Most of our
shacks are full of technical devices of all kinds, which help us in
various ways.
To lump any of them, including multi-channel decoders, in with another live human is just silly. All that's going to accomplish is drive the use of such tools underground, and make it less and less fun for those of us
who do follow the rules.

Multi-channel decoders and the like are simply tools, and using them is just a different way of operating. They can just as easily turn into a giant waste of time and effort as be helpful. The same thing is true for
bandscopes, SO2R, super check partial, bandmaps and even logging
software; the list is endless. These are all just tools -- useful in some
hands, detrimental in others -- and one op's decision to use them
certainly doesn't interfere with anyone's choice to use a VFO and tune
around the band that way.

In addition, if you're mainly running, and rarely S&P, your use of a
multi-channel decoder won't help you make any additional QSOs. However, in that case, when others spot you, those spots can play a huge part in making lots of QSOs *for you*, whether you claim to be "unassisted" or not. That so many who enter as unassisted seem to deny this basic fact
baffles my mind.
CW Skimmer Server and the RBN have *certainly* boosted QSOs and scores
for many so-called unassisted ops.

Personally, I want to encourage innovation and new ways of operating. I realize there are some who don't like change -- and that's OK; there's no reason why they have to use the new stuff. But to push those restrictions on the rest of us is counter-productive, and in fact self-defeating in the long run (and yes, we are pushed, there's no doubt about it). On the one hand, the community bemoans the lack of new and younger participants,
while on the other, discouraging the very kinds of things that would
attract them.

If the no-assistance purists really want to compete against other
purists, then the "unassisted" category should require a sprint-like QSY after every QSO to minimize the usefulness of spots to help others find *them* -- and "assisted" would be "everything else." If you don't want to benefit from using spots to find others, then you shouldn't benefit from others using spots to find you. I don't like that dividing line nearly as
well as the one I proposed before (onsite vs. offsite), but it would
still be an improvement over what we have today. (having said that, one
advantage of a sprint-like approach is that it's relatively easy to
enforce on the log-check side).

73, Rick ZL2HAM / ZM1G


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