For some like myself who have never and will never be able to
experience topband from other areas ore even other local stations,
streaming audio can be of significant interest, be it contest or non
contest. It adds another dimension of fun, discovery, and learning
to the hobby.
I see very little to no potential for abuse of streaming audio from
a contest participant. Non-contest streaming could be a different
matter, but frankly in today's world there is so much technology
available for cheating that the means is always there for those who
are going to do it. I don't believe a few stations streaming audio
is going to change the playing field much.
I personally have streamed audio/video from my station during 6
meter operation. There was a good deal of interest for reasons
similar to those stated in my opening paragraph. Thus far I have
hesitated to do it on 160 because there are so many who get upset
about it. I wish we had some way to stream with a short built in
delay - long enough to preclude using the stream as a remote
receiver. Incredibly, I have not been able to find any way to do
that. My solution has been to stream video along with the audio. The
delay in video encoding and broadcast has been enough to make it
virtually useless to anyone who might try to use it as a remote
receiver.
My blood pressure is lower since I accepted there are those who are
going to cheat, that DX standings may not reflect what was done by
fair means alone, and that there is nothing I can do about it. It
wasn't an easy adaptation, but it was a healthy one. I won't comment
on contest scores. I'm not enough of a competitive contester to have
formed an opinion on the level of cheating that may ore may not take
place.
73,
Paul N1BUG
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