On Mon, Jul 28, 2003 at 02:57:25PM -0400, Warren Walsh wrote:
>
> What amazes me is how many individuals get so up-tight when these questions
> are asked! Why is that? Are these questions hitting too close to home, or
> maybe they have some truth to them?
>
I have wondered the same for years.
I have also aksed alot of questions about the W2SZ operation over
the years and I have gotten answers about it from operators of
W2SZ and from other persons not related to the SZ operations.
I think it is clear that W2SZ has some number of stations who get
on during the contest weekend (usually as rovers) and these stations
go to a great effort to work W2SZ and little or no effort to work anyone else.
Some of these stations use gear that has offset frequencies that make
it very diffucult if not impossible for any normally equiped station to
work them. To be fair I have been told this is just an artifact of
an old design that made it cheaper and eaiser to get stations on
the microwave bands. But it would seem this gear is still in use
by some of the stations working W2SZ.
Several times in the past this reflector (and others) has seen a
flurry of messages on the subject of "captive rovers" and as I recall
the last time this came up it was clear many did not even understand
what a "captive rover" was. It was also pointed out that this was
not against the rules so anyone who would question this method of
operating should just give up.
As N6TR pointed out last week - many of us come from an HF contesting
background where the thought of sending out operators to need multipliers
to work you and only you on the bands would be seriously frowned on.
In fact I think it would be seen as out right cheating by most
in the HF contest scene.
Indeed of the top scoring HF contesters that I know - we frown upon
the practice of "good buddy QSOs" - you know those contacts from
the local club members who only get on to work you and maybe they
even use their club calls and their wifes calls and their inactive
father-in-laws calls to generate contacts.
This is clearly stacking the deck. When I have had this happen to
me I have either not logged these manufactured contacts and have
told the person after the contest that I would perfer that they
do not feed me callsigns. While this sort of manufacutred contact
is diffrent than captive rovers - is is really that much removed?
Do you want contests where it is ok to stack the deck in an effort to
make a larger score?
--
George Fremin III - K5TR
geoiii@kkn.net
http://www.kkn.net/~k5tr
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