Well Warren here's the answer: This is the original posting on July 16 on this
subject, by me.
""This is an excerpt from the weekly ARRL Letter. It has taken awhile to get
rolling but it is working very well. I've heard a lot of moaning and groaning
because it's to complicated or to time consuming etc. So far I have DXCC so at
least 100 countries have figured it out. It sure makes post contest stuff easy
because all you need to do is upload your log to LOTW and you will begin
receiving QSL's. It is a firm part of my post contest routine: email the log to
the contest sponsor, brag to 3830, upload to LOTW and the contest is finished,
it's really easy.
Try it, you might like it............"" That's what it, originally, had to do
with contesting.
As usually happens it took on a life all it's own and went out on several
different tangents, the most popular being "it's to complicated".
Now to answer your other comments; Let's go back even further to 30 years ago.
I was at Dayton with a very prominent DX'er. We were at one of the DX
hospitality suites and in walked Don Search. (For those who don't know who Don
Search was, he was the devil disguised as the DX manager at the ARRL. Those who
think LOTW is difficult this guy went over every single card with a magnifying
glass.) My friend attempted to assault Don Search and I had to restrain him and
Search's 'groupies' immediately ushered him out of the hospitality suite.
The point of my story is DXCC, from 100 to the honor roll, is a religion to
many folks, held in much higher esteem than the Holy Grail. That is the reason
for so much emphasis on getting it right.
Unfortunately, like every other aspect of our hobby, DXCC has been
'dumbed-down' and has zero credibility today(IMHO). The recent acceptance of P5
is a great example. Also there is 'NO' licensing authority in YI, the military
does not have amateur radio licensing authority, and if the recent YO stories
are true where is the credibility in a DXCC award.
MAL N7MAL
BULLHEAD CITY, AZ
http://www.ctaz.com/~suzyq/N7mal.htm
http://geocities.com/n7mal/
----- Original Message -----
From: Warren C. Stankiewicz
To: cq-contest@contesting.com
Sent: Monday, July 25, 2005 17:07
Subject: Re: [CQ-Contest] L.O.T.W.
I still don't know how this directly relates to contesting, but here goes.
Dale Martin wrote:
> and a lot more questionable as to validity?
Here lies the heart of the problem.
Awards like DXCC, and Honor Roll, et al, are exactly that. Awards. It's a
piece of paper (I have a couple on my wall), or maybe a plaque, if you're
one of the Deserving. Take your DXCC certificate and a dollar to Denny's,
and they'll give you a cup of coffee--but don't forget the dollar.
The reason LOTW is requiring this complexity and level of digital signatures
is because the importance some hams have placed on the perceived "integrity"
of the program is far beyond the actual intrinsic value of the awards it
relates to. It's an award, not the Holy Grail, and too many people have
obsessed about it way too far for way too long.
This is not a new thing. You can go back 15 years or more to the days when
DXCC was still mountainous stacks of paper records, and people would show up
with massive stacks of cards that all had to be reviewed one at a time, very
carefully, by people who worked long hours with little sleep. Not to mention
the amount of effort expended over whether some little group of rocks is
really a country or not, or whether someone was actually where they say they
were when they operated. To what point, to what end, I ask? In the end, does
it really matter? Should it have ever mattered?
So long as hams view DXCC as the sine que non of amateur radio operating
ability, these viewpoints will always be skewed to what, to me, is an absurd
degree. It's time we stop obsessing about the perceived "validity" of
contacts made and submitted to the DXCC program, and concentrate more on
simply making the contacts themselves.
With malice towards none,
Warren, NF1J/6
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