On 6/24/09 1:10 PM, Les Rayburn wrote:
> After the contest, I started thinking about the experience. It
> occurred to me that I had a perfectly good Kenwood TH-F6A in the
> truck that puts out five watts on 2, 440, and 222. Would it have been
> legal and/or ethical to simply "hand" them the radio and invite them
> to participate in the contest by working me on the spot? Carrying
> that logic one step further, what if I carried a 900mhz Kenwood HT
> converted to ham frequencies, or one of those new Alinco HT's with
> 1.2ghz FM? Or even better a Kenwood VX-8R which has 6M, 2M, 440, and
> 222.
Unfortunately, a lot of contests have what I call the 'contaminated
radio' rule. Effectively, once a radio has been used 'in a contest' for
a specific call, said radio/station can't be used for another
station/call. There's a family exemption to this rule, usually.
To be honest, I understand the rule and agree with it... And it
probably was created to avoid some of what you're trying to do. Don't
get me wrong -- I think that you trying to get other people more
involved in the hobby is a good thing... But you're basically giving
people equipment just so you can get more contacts. Scaled up (not
likely, I know, but work with me here) it can give you an unfair advantage.
> Instead of those hams being somewhat of a handicap (wasting valuable
> operating time answering questions) they could have been points in
> the contest. I'm sure I'm not the only one who has thought of this,
> so forgive me if I'm wasting bandwidth rehashing old ground.
While I'll admit I can be a bit of a hardcore contester at times, I'd
take more of an 'educative approach'. Sure, you're losing op-time while
explaining and educating... but by answering questions, etc, you might
have a chance of getting those people operating their OWN stations in
the future, giving all of us the chance for those contacts (and maybe
mults.)
> As always, I appreciate the advice from the masters.
Your heart is in the right place, Les, and it's good to see you're
thinking. Please feel free to respond to my points. I don't intend for
this to be a personal attack, and I love a good discussion (it sure
beats a weather/rig ragchew! ;)
--mec
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