>Bob Reed, (Hi, Bob) W2CE says:
>This procedure and aggressiveness goes wrong in my eyes when I
>watch many people, including ARRL officials, using packet and claiming
>SO.
> Just ask Billy Lunt for copies of the first 3 years SS packet
>violators I sent him. They were even broken down into requesting
section
>info
Let's face some facts here. A list like would have been worthless. How do
you prove something like that? Anyone could claim it was someone else
using their call, after all, or that the list wasn't accurate, or there
was a personal vendetta involved.
The ARRL, the ARRL Contest Branch, and we contesters should not be
interested in witch hunts. This is a hobby, not the Spanish Inquisition.
Get real!
With malice towards none, If your ego is such that you feel you have to
cheat in a contest, go right ahead, as far as I'm concerned. I checked
logs at ARRL for nearly 6 1/2 years; and I can assure you that nearly any
system can be beaten if you work at it hard enough. But what the heck
would be the point?
There used to be a great debate about log checking as to whether it was
intended to keep people honest, or to measure accuracy as a part of the
competition. It's certainly moved a lot more towards the latter than it
used to be the former (especially given the methods used as recently as
10 years ago).
I've been beaten by people I know who were unscrupulous, and I've seen a
lot of logs from people who I think were less than honest. Sometimes they
win, sometimes they get caught with their hands in the cookie jar.
Sweepstakes is a strong test of operating skill--you have to be able to
send, you have to be able to copy, and you have to use some strategy.
It's more than just sitting near the low end of the bands for 24 hours
and sending your call. For me (and hopefully, some other people), this is
what makes the contest great.
It's also the easiest one to do log checking for--because of the
exchange, and because people always make the same mistake over and over.
I used to have a slide show on this, once upon a time.
Folks, if you take this checked SS logs as a measure of your operating
ability, and as a way of seeing where you need to improve, that's a good
thing.
If you think that log checking, and contesting in general, should be more
about who's cheating, and what's going on with whom, and how life isn't
fair (face it--it isn't fair), then you're not going to do anything but
make yourself more miserable.
Contesting should be about how well can you do, not what are your
competitors doing. Too many people, IMHO, have the opinion that "If I'm
not winning, someone else must have been cheating!" There's only one
person who's going to be in first place. Does that mean no one else
should bother?
Now let's move past this silliness and get on the air and kick some butt!
Warren, NF1J (happily now off the soapbox).
(nf1j@juno.com)
___________________________________________________________________
You don't need to buy Internet access to use free Internet e-mail.
Get completely free e-mail from Juno at http://www.juno.com/getjuno.html
or call Juno at (800) 654-JUNO [654-5866]
--
CQ-Contest on WWW: http://www.contesting.com/_cq-contest/
Administrative requests: cq-contest-REQUEST@contesting.com
|