This, from Kelly, VE4XT, is one of the clearest and most logical summaries
I have seen. It follows a similarly logical analysis from Keith, GM4YXI.
W4TV and others argue that the ability to populate one's bandmap with
several hundred spots of every one of the signals on the band heard from
one location, refreshed every minute if the operator wishes, is unassisted.
They fall back on the old axiom that "technology should be left alone if
it's within the five hundred meter circle," no matter that every signal
will ba labeled, its frequency noted with the ability to click on it and
immediately transported there, and it that's not enough, the transmission
is decoded so the operator is able to see when the station is standing by.
As soon as we all using this "non-assisted" advance in technology, we will
be offered the attractive ability to call this station automatically when
our decoding software determines the station is needed, is not a dupe, and
has stood by for a call. We won't even have to hear any thing from the
station we have just "worked." Are we so foolish to allow the definition of
"non-assisted single operator" contesting to follow this path? These voices
argue that as long as all this takes place in the "magic circle" of our own
five hundred meter circle, it's all OK.
I, for one, do not and will not buy this.
Jim George N3BB
At 10:21 AM 6/10/2008 -0500, ve4xt@mts.net wrote:
>It seems the only people now arguing that computer logging, auto-tune
>amplifiers or the like should
>constitute "assistance" are those arguing for the unfettered release of
>Skimmer into the contesting
>ethos.
>
>It has always been clear, spelled out in many rules, that "assisted"
>classes refer to those operators
>receiving spotting information (callsigns and QRGs, not merely spikes on a
>bandscope). There has never
>been a mention of automation of the administrivia of contesting being
>"assistance".
>
>So to argue that to place Skimmer into "assisted" classes means that you
>must also place any other
>automated feature of a station into assisted is simply a red herring. The
>smart readers of this forum
>have not bought into that particular bit of seafood.
>
>I am not anti-Skimmer: but I do not buy the argument that our forefathers
>intended to restrict the
>definition of assistance only to that information coming from other
>people. Spots are spots.
>
>73, kelly
>ve4xt
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