Hi.
It seems to me that this touches on another topic that I don't want to
rehash, but speaks to something that, to me, is the core question in
contesting: Is a contest simply a test of how many stations we can work
or is it also a test of how well we can work them?
If it's the former, then what's the point of an exchange at all?
And doesn't SS, by its very nature, demand the latter? And doesn't that
suggest that while we wouldn't want to make an exchange unreasonably
difficult, we don't want it to be a cakewalk, either?
After all, if the sole intent of a contest was the pure transmission of
data, would we use a technology that admittedly is as outdated as HF SSB?
(And no flames please: I'm not speaking against HF SSB contesting. I love
it. But we must admit that as a technology, it's pretty
long-in-the-tooth.)
If we have a problem with the knowledge of sections, it's up to us to
study them better. If we're working a casual op who doesn't know his
section from a hole in the ground, isn't it up to us to help him figure
it out if we want his Q?
The possibility of errors is what sets SS apart from the QSO fests
sponsored by the OTHER magazine. (And again, I like those contests. But I
like SS better.) Let's not diminish a great contest's distinctiveness for
the sake of some ops who can't be bothered to get the sections right.
-
73, kelly
VE4XT
ve4xt@mts.net
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