I would suggest that anyone curious take a listen to the live stream recording
on YouTube and look at the interaction Ray has with the "live chat room" on his
website with the contacts being made.
Asking people to look for him on the Cluster to see where he is.
Even as an assisted operation, it demonstrates numerous rules violations as
recorded.
Its great entertainment though. I like it from that perspective. Just has no
place competing one on one with the contest rules as stated.
Ed N1UR
________________________________________
From: Edward Sawyer
Sent: Wednesday, March 11, 2020 1:43 PM
To: rjairam@gmail.com; cq-contest@contesting.com
Subject: RE: [CQ-Contest] Merging Social Media and Contesting
Hi Ria. Thanks for asking the clarifying question. Absolutely not concerned
about popularization through social media. Look how famous people like OH2BH
or K3LR or ON4UN are in general. Great for them.
Tieing it real time to the contest activity is the concern. Especially for the
“novelty” of hearing one’s self on the streaming video and seeing how they
sound vs their buddy down the street.
I relate it to the “popularity” of the WRTC stations. Why do people pile up on
these stations in the contest? Because the novelty of being part of the
competition and the “leader boards” and certificates for working only them. I
have done IARU before on a WRTC weekend and let me tell you it “drains the
pond” for the rest of us. But that’s okay because all WRTC participants are
benefitted and all IARU contesters are equally negatively affected. But this
is what happens.
W2RE beat the K3LR 20M band score. Is that because of the awesome station and
location? Or was it helped by the “lets see what I sound like over the pond”
affect? Not sure in my mind. And it is not a fair comparison with this
element added on.
Ed N1UR
From: rjairam@gmail.com <rjairam@gmail.com>
Sent: Wednesday, March 11, 2020 1:28 PM
To: Edward Sawyer <EdwardS@sbelectronics.com>
Cc: cq-contest@contesting.com
Subject: Re: [CQ-Contest] Merging Social Media and Contesting
Ed,
Allow me to play devil’s advocate:
“ However, if you look at the activity generated on the facebook page - a
couple of million hits since early January (bravo Ray) - its hard for me to
rationalize that there is not a direct pick up of Qs based on this parallel
activity. Casuals, which are a huge part of running up the Q totals in any
major DX contest, may be listening to the channel and say, I wonder how loud I
am verses these other guys Ray is working. And look up on the cluster to find
Ray's frequency and give a call to hear themselves. That is exactly
"soliciting a contact by non-amateur means". Not overtly - like give me a call
if you are watching - but by "advertising" and letting the rest happen on its
own.”
As many know I have a pretty significant presence on social media. Many will
look for me specifically in the contest and work me because they know me on
social media.
Is the problem with this sort of operation that someone is popular outside of
amateur radio? Or is it because of that specific contest operation being
popularized on social media?
If it is the latter, I would agree that it should be placed in a separate
category, as it is borderline self-spotting.
But for the former, you cannot penalize someone simply because they are popular
outside of RF on the air during that contest weekend. That to me wouldn’t be
fair.
I really would like to see contest organizers bring back the “sky is the limit”
categories and bring on the arms race but keep it separate from traditional
operating. Things like self spotting, and (a single op or single team) using
remotes on both coasts as well as remote receivers would be part of this. It
would be interesting what kind of scores it would produce.
73
Ria, N2RJ
On Wed, Mar 11, 2020 at 10:31 AM Edward Sawyer
<EdwardS@sbelectronics.com<mailto:EdwardS@sbelectronics.com>> wrote:
Some of you may not be aware of an interesting and different even that happened
last weekend.
W2RE of well known RHR fame, decided to not only provide live streaming of his
contesting effort, but tied it into the activity he has been doing since early
January which is fully integrating the on air DX activity into Facebook and
youtube channel streaming. Ray has done a wonderful job of integrating social
media with HF on air activity as part of promoting RHR and DXing in general.
You cant argue that this benefits the hobby in general.
However, the rules of the contest state that "contacts cannot be solicited by
non-amateur means". Examples are typically given but those examples are not
exhaustive. The intent of the rule, I believe, is that you should have people
calling you by the normal discovery process that all of us use. Not a special
method no one else is using.
Ray, to his credit, was not showing his transmit frequency ion the video. And
I personally believe there was no intention of using this additional channel to
gain an advantage. At all. However, if you look at the activity generated on
the facebook page - a couple of million hits since early January (bravo Ray) -
its hard for me to rationalize that there is not a direct pick up of Qs based
on this parallel activity. Casuals, which are a huge part of running up the Q
totals in any major DX contest, may be listening to the channel and say, I
wonder how loud I am verses these other guys Ray is working. And look up on
the cluster to find Ray's frequency and give a call to hear themselves. That
is exactly "soliciting a contact by non-amateur means". Not overtly - like
give me a call if you are watching - but by "advertising" and letting the rest
happen on its own.
I think it is a wonderful idea on its own. But it does not compete fairly with
those just playing the game by the rules as intended.
CQ WW used to have an unlimited class, maybe they still do. Maybe we need an
unlimited class to promote this "multi channel" contesting. But mixing it up
with normal contesting just doesn't feel right to me.
What do others think?
Ed N1UR
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