Hi all:
Pretty lofty subject title, huh? LOL
This is a long post, but hopefully not verbose. I'd like to reframe single op
in terms of an historical perspective as well as a future persepective. I feel
that much of the angst, squirming, sitting-on-one's hands, etc that is taking
place today is because we are at a middle point of the single op evolution.
I am certainly far from the oldest contester on here (I'm 55, first licensed in
1966 and got my first contest award somewhere in the late 60's). So I concede
to a definite bias based on my life experience during the years that I've
played
radio. I would especially welcome comments from older contesters to add their
historical perspective (wisdom), and certainly comments from everyone are
welcomed by me.
My focus during this presentation will be the single op and what a single op
did, does, and might do in order to compete. My further focus will be on all
types of technololgy (a broad category title) that the single op has utlized
over the decades in order to maximize their score. By stressing "maximum
score" I am clearly interested in the more competitive aspects of contesting.
And finally (I can't help myself), I'add add my thoughts and opinions. I shall
also suggest further discussion (forecasting) about the future state of single
op with, I hope, some thought-provoking concepts.
Before I begin, I would like to thank KQ2M for "putting me on the spot" at
N2RM's one year (long ago). We had just finished the contest (M/M), won,
and blew away the old record held by N2AA/K2GL. We were standing around
outside the shack (literally) when he turned to me and asked, "So what did you
guys to all day at N2AA/K2GL to have so many wins with such low scores?"
The question was pretty, well, insulting, but it did cause me to wonder.
As I recall, all of us at N2AA/K2GL were going at a zillion miles per hours
just to keep up when having a 120 hour. What exactly was the difference?
Why didn't I feel "exhausted" after this record-setting session?
ANTENNAS
Back in the 60's, most of us had relatively (by today's standards) small
antennas. I had a TH6 (which was "massive"). The TA33 was very common,
as was the TA33JR. A very few built their own, using "formulas" that we
now know were junk in terms of optimization, but were better a trapped
tribander. Stacks were almost unheard of (I recall a VK with stacked rhombic)
as were towers over 80 feet. Some guys had monobanders - wow and "drool." To
build a "big station" on the outside, you needed lots of special talent. That
was one of the requirements of "top contest op" - the ability to build up a
big antenna farm.
WHERE TO POINT?
Another requirement of a great contest op was knowing where to point your
antenna according to the country/zone you were trying to work. Beam heading
tables were a big help. Looking at it on the screen is now even better.
And having a computer turn your antenna (or select the antenna for you) is
better still.
BAND OPENINGS
When is VS6DO going to come in LP on 15M and where do I point? If you knew
the answer to that, you were a top contest op; it was a requirement. Most
of that came via experience, now anyone can look at the MUF, grayline, etc.
in real time. Another requirement gone away....or at least gone in terms of
personal skill level.
RIGS
Separate transmitter and receiver. To work someone, you had to find them
on the RX and then zero- beat them with the TX. Slow. You could slave the
two togther, but getting them to actually be on the same frequency was hard
and required frequent tweaking. The faster you could zerobeat or the better
you were at aligning the freq during transceive, the better you were. This
was another requirement of a top contest op, now gone.
CHANGING BANDS and TUNING UP
Of course, you had to "tune" your rig. Dip the plate, matching the load
for max out., watch the grid, etc. With some rigs, this required a lot of
manual dexterity, such as depressing one knob while turning another knob
and watching the meter, all at the same time. Go too fast and you miss the
dip, possibly hurting your tube finals (in the rig).
And every time you changed bands, you had lots of knobs to turn: the receiver,
the transmitter, the amp, the antennas. Of course, changing bands not only
meant
retuning the rig, but retuning the amp. If you were really hot, you built your
own monoband amps and didn't have to retune when you changed bands. But those
guys were few and far between....but when you found them, it was a sure sign
of dedication to the contest effort. Some guys still do this, but now auto-
tune or broadband is the norm. Another skill gone.
SENDING CW
Way back when, sending consistently clean CW was the sign of a super-hero.
By the time you got to the wee hours or the end of the contest, you'd be
sending lots of garbage that you had to correct. Again, having an "iron
fist" (which literally meant that your forearm felt like iron when sending)
was a very important requirement for being a top contest op. The worse your
cw got, the more repeats you had to do. And believe me, there were TONS of
repeats by the end of the contest.
Moving from "bugs" to keyers helped a lot. Building a memory keyer, wow...that
was the supreme piece of gear to "automate" your work. Finally, clean cw all
the time. I still have my FRC memory keyer (it sits on the shelf, never used
today) which I think is from the mid 70's. I did a great job building it into
a box that just barely could fit the circuit board. My box is 7" wide, by 13"
deep, by 1.75" tall. I have two LEDs, 3 toggle switches, 2 pots, and 7
pushbuttons
on the "front panel" (1.75" x 7"). It was a tour de force of modern technology
and dramatically changed one the previous absolute requirements for a great
contest op (at least for cw).
Of course now, we barely "send" any cw at all. It's all done with the push of
key or a "tab." Very cool, very efficient and very much eliminated another
"requirement" for establishing who a great contest op was.
CALLING CQ (SSB)
Who can forget getting a raspy throat after just a few hours and yet pushing on?
Having "iron lungs/vocal cords" was a real phone-man's requirement for
contesting.
Not any more....just push the buttons/keys (most of the time).
LOGGING and MAINTAINING A DUPE SHEET
This is the big one (or two). Way back when, logging was a separate function
from maintaining a dupe sheet. One sign of a great contest op was being able
to DESIGN the optimally efficient dupe sheet. I clearly remember collecting
all the dupe sheets from all the ops (at N2AA/K2GL M/M) and reviewing them
before the next contest to look for areas for improvement. How much room to
allocate to G3 and G4. How much room to allocate to UK5 (Ukraine - there were
millions of 'em). JA was a real challenge back then...JA always had it's own
dupe sheet which was constantly updated. Dupe sheets in NY were always three
pages: Europe, JA, and the rest of the world. They were GIANT. As I recall,
I taped three 11" by 14" pieces of paper together for each dupe sheet. I
manually
drew grids on all of them. JA had prefixes in one axis and call areas in the
other axis. EUROPE was, well, a mess, but did the trick. Various countries
had
their own little sections. I could even inlude "hints" about callsign, such as
"all 3 letter suffix YU's must have two letter in alphabetical sequence (such
as
YU1EXY), or "G4 is not past the letter L" etc. It took a LOT of work.
Designing
a great dupe sheet was definitely a requirement. You could look at someone
else's
dupe sheet and figure out, based on its design, if they were "good" or not.
And during the contest, you had to KNOW your own dupe sheet. Being efficient
at
finding the block to enter the info was a big requirement for all top ops. It
was
always exciting to change dupe sheets from (say) EU to JA. It was the sign of
something great about to happen. At a M/M, watching 15m change to the JA dupe
sheet always caused the other ops to get excited. If you spilled a drink on
the
dupe sheet, it was a major disaster. Great contest ops were good at not
spilling
their drinks...it was a requirement.
Logging required good to great handwriting. If you had terrible handwriting,
you
would end up losing QSO's because the log-checker could not read what you put
down
(I know - I removed lots of QSO's from entrants's logs because there was only
"scribble" in the log). Making sure your U didn't look like your V was very
important.
Keeping your pencil sharp was also a requirement. Fat pencils make otherwise
clear handwriting illegible. One year, W5OV (ex WA2OVE, ex KR2J, ex-N5NJ) gave
me a mechanical pencil for use during the contest. WOW! Why didn't I think of
that before? That was a big advance. It saved lots of time sharpening your
pencil.
And if you made a logging mistake that you caught? You had to MANUALLY ERASE
the
entry in the log (without ripping the page) and correct it. You had to find
the
entry in the dupe sheet, erase it, and re-enter it into the correct block. And
god
help you if your eraser wore down to the metal...you'd rip that spot for sure!
Having extra erasers on hand was important!
Now we have computer logging. The neat handwriting requirement is gone;
designing
an efficient dupe sheet for your part of the world....gone; making corrections
in multiple places without smudges or tears....thanks to F11...gone!
SO WHAT DOES THIS MEAN?
Well, I have just listed a fair number of "required single op" skills that no
longer apply. I don't think any of these "breakthroughs" was the topic of
discussion about whether or not it "changed the category." Maybe I'm wrong.
Certainly, the advent of the personal computer has made the biggest change in
terms of single op skills. In all cases, to be honest, a genuine "required
skill"
was lost. But in retrospect, I guess many view these as technological
advancements
which removed "boring chores" or "mundane tasks" from the required skill set; it
freed up the op to do more "operating." And I agree that the elimination of
all of
these "chores" is a good thing. It has made contesting more efficient and more
fun
(at least for me) and I still feel like I am in control and that my skill be
tested
and is what is driving my score. [note sneaky insertion of another possible
definition]
So just how do we define "operating?" One might argue that this means,
minimally,
recording what is input to your ears, processed by your brain (or brain stem)
and
output (recorded) via your hands and fingers. Of course the RTTY folks will
argue
with this definition, so for the purposes of this presentation, let's limit the
scope to CW and SSB.
ASSISTANCE VIA PACKET/INTERNET/SPOTTING NETS/ETC: WHAT IT CHANGES
1. It give you the callsign. This means that if you want to, you don't
have
to copy the callsign yourself. Do most guys who use spotting assistance
actually "bother" to copy the callsign on their own? I don't know. Is
it
"okay" to copy the call yourself "most" of time but not "all" the time?
That's your personal decision. I think (my opinion) that you should
always copy the callsign on your own. Lots of good anecdotes, but I
won't
bother to share them. I am sure everybody has their own.
2. You know where the mults are without tuning the band. True. Isn't that
the idea of assistance? Clearly, some (many, most?) single op
UNassisted
guys feel that this alone is enough to maintain SOA/unlimited as a
separate category. To be sure, "finding the needed mults" was a
required
skill for the single op entrant from "the past" as described above, and
continues to be a requirement for the current UNassisted categories.
SUPER CHECK PARTIAL
No previous (recent) discussion on this, but since this is MY posting, I'll
include
it. There is absolutely no justification for any category to use SCP. In all
cases, your job as a contester is to copy the callsign on your own (again, my
opinion). How much less can there be for an op to do? Either you accurately
copied the callsign yourself, or you didn't. If you are not sure of the call,
you can ask for a repeat, guess (bad), or move on. With SCP, you are using a
database of known calls to "help" you. This most basic of contesting skills
is being artificially supplemented by a database compiled from other entrants.
This is just wrong. If you log any call through the use of SCP, then you are
logging a call which you did not copy yourself. You have removed your skill
from the equation and defintion of a "contester."
I've heard the argument that some guys can remember all the callsigns and "Why
should I be penalized for not having a great memory?" Well, for me, knowing
the
calls is part of the skill level that we want to promote; it comes with
experience
and experience should count. If I hear H?8N, I should be able to use my
knowledge
of callsigns, figure out where the band might be open to (and/or where my beam
is
pointing) and try "HC8N ?" If I get an R in return, my experience is rewarded
with
a confirmation. I guess it could have been HG8N also, but my antenna was
pointed
SW (from NJ) and it was "that" time of day. But anything is possible. I could
have heard "No HG HG8N") instead. Of course, I could have just logged HC8N even
though it was realy HG8N, if I didn't bother to listen or think about time of
day, etc.
If the call is more complicated and not so well known, why should I be prompted
with
a list of "likely" calls to choose from? That is just not right (again, my
opinion).
THE ISSUE AT HAND
So...at what point do we want to define what constitutes the essential skills
for a
single op? What is the bare minimum? We have traced how skills previously
deemed
as "requirements" have fallen by the wayside. Nobody has had real issues with
them.
If you think assistance in its current form is tough, let's try looking at the
future.
CONTINUED SINGLE OP EVOLUTION OR THE END OF AN ERA?
In the future, nobody will use packet/internet/spotting nets. Our rigs will
all be
SDR and driven by terabyte processors operating at teraherz speeds. The RIG
will scan
the entire band (and all bands) every millisecond. It will identify every
callsign
on every frequency and could even "make the qso" as well. Tree and Mario both
have
some form of this already (though primative now). Bob Cox wrote an article
about this
(as have others) some time ago. Was it a joke or a premonition?
Currently, the SO2R guys send "automatic" CQ's while the op tunes around
elsewhere.
Is it such a stretch to think that not only will the software call CQ, but will
listen for a reply, figure out if it is a needed qso or not, and then work it
and
log it? I don't think so. Why hasn't this happened yet? Will this still meet
the
definition of single op?
It is time for some deep thinking about how to define "single op" and "single op
assisted/unlimited." If we stick with the name "unlimited," should it really
be
completely unlimited? Will the definitions include any skill (skill set) for a
HUMAN at the controls?
This is not a joke; it is something to seriously contemplate. Saying, "Well,
I'll be
dead by then" is probably NOT correct.
For those who love the sport, these topics require substantial thought. If you
decide
to "leave it up to others," then you'll have to live with those decisions.
Wishing you all a mx [or insert appropriate holiday] es hny!
de Doug KR2Q
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