> My suggestion is that we institute a system of contest OO's (Official
> Observers). Volunteers for each contest, at least one team of two for
> every ARRL section, more where required. These could be CW guys for phone
> contests, or versa vice, etc.
> Referees were a roaring success in WRTC, by the way. The operators,
> all world-class, insisted on a level playing field to the maximum
> extent possible. My guess is that is wouldn't take very long before
> the more blatent cheaters found another way to spend their weekends.
> Good, clean ops should welcome this self-policing, non-invasive
> solution or something similar.
I don't welcome this solution, so I guess that makes it clear what kind
of op I am not.
The referees at WRTC were former world champions (like N6AA, who has won
CQWW 10 times or whatever), big-time contest adjuticators (like K3EST)
and so forth, i.e. guys who really understand the issues. Because of
their knowledge, they commanded lots of respect from the competitors and
everything turned out great.
Unfortunately this doesn't scale well to an off-site competition; there
aren't 154 N6AA's. Besides, who is going to make a special trip to HC8
to check whether I am transmitting on two bands at once?
You could say I'm philosophically in favor of this idea, but I'm against
the particular implementation that has been suggested. The bottom line
is that I don't want to be put on the spot because of the bungling of a
couple of local non-op yahoos.
--Trey, WN4KKN
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