Rick,
Time and money are not the only issues. If they were, what you say might be
true.
Having "daddy" at home is a (maybe THE) major issue that your observation
ignores. The other factor is travel time during non-contest periods for
casual operating. I think that many of these remote stations are primarily
intended to solve the casual operating problem, and if they work for that
purpose, why not use them during contests?
I am stunned that anyone thinks that using a remote station is somehow an
advantage over using local equipment. If anything, remote operations should
get an increased "degree of difficulty" multiplier.
73,
Bob W5OV
-----Original Message-----
From: Rick, W6RKC [mailto:ab1u@volcano.net]
Sent: Thursday, March 29, 2007 11:31 PM
To: cq-contest@contesting.com
Subject: [CQ-Contest] SO2R remote contesting
So, let me get his straight.
You have enough money and time to scour real estate listings to find
a piece of property without zoning restrictions, with outstanding
terrain, no neighbors, TVI, noise sources, outstanding dielectric
constant/conductivity soil conditions, can cover all the angles and
purchase this property.
You have enough money and time to hire a contractor to build a
building to house a SO2R station.
You have enough money and time to acquire necessary towers, coax,
antennas, rotors, radios, amplifiers, computers, software, gadgets,
etc. for a world class, top ten competitive SO2R remote contesting station.
You have enough money and time to assemble this equipment, debug
software, network computers and assure all of this works flawlessly.
You have enough money and time to obtain commercial or solar
electricity, and a solid broadband Internet connection with minimal latency.
You have enough money and time to make sure that this site is
maintained, free from lightning, rain storms, wind storms, ice
storms, snow storms, hurricanes, tornados, vandalism from meth lab -
pot farmer reprobates who inhabit the hinterlands, misplaced gunshots
from deer hunters and various other maladies.
You have enough money and time to set up the remote operating
location with all the necessary accoutrements.
And you don't have enough money and time to drive or fly to this
radio Nirvana to operate a contest?
Messrs. Neiger, Garlough, Crovelli, et al have top ten contest
stations at remote locations and they fly to them to operate and win
the world. You can't drive a few miles to do the same?
I live in the Sierra-Nevada mountains and work in the Eldorado
National Forest maintaining remote telecommunications equipment. It
is a FULL TIME JOB keeping it operational. (including the vandalism
from meth lab - pot farmer druggies), lightning, 25' to 35' of snow,
power outages, etc. Work like mad in the summer hoping to survive the
winter. Yes, we provide ADSL to customers in the forest - at
384K. At my QTH, I have the staggering dial-up speed of 26.4K
because SBC/ATT won't spend the money to upgrade my SLC to DSL
capability. Since the 2 meter packet link was shut down I can't even
do SOA - no connection to the packet cluster ( and more fun by the
way ). There are many outstanding peaks and ridge lines for radio
operations - and very difficult engineering problems keeping
electronics operational. And, I love technological innovation, I get
to see and play with a lot of it.
So again, I still want to know how you have the money and time to
engineer this SO2R remote contesting top ten location but not the
money and time to get there and operate.
If I loved contesting that much, I would move to where I could
operate to my hearts content and telecommute to work. ( I did).
I look forward to working all of you, remote and non-remote,
73,
Rick, W6RKC
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