[CQ-Contest] Re: contesting in the 21st century - why not expand ASSISTED?

[bogus at does.not.exist.com]

In his Mail dated 29.07.97  05:53:04 Mario S56A wrote

<< It would be nice second op. scaning all the bands while I can call
 endless CQ for 48 hours.  As I might need some sleep, PC's may go alone! >>

Well that is exactly the things I am talking of when I say "this is all
getting ridiculous somehow". I thought of something like this and can think
up some more scenarios where I see the TECHNICAL challenge but really do not
see any SPORTIVE effort anymore.

There we have those brilliant single operators who can perform those tasks
themselves and you want to substitute this with a band-surfing robot who
collects the multipliers for you?? And justify this substitution with the
sentence: well it is still the HUMAN operator who makes the strategic
decisions and thus wins the contest...   Come on, isnt this exxagerating
things a little bit? In the case give above, which decisions? So you want to
be asked by the robot:" Should I work the new, always needed multiplier or
should I just let him be??? How would you decide in this difficult strategic
question? 

(NO, I have never done real 2-way radio contesting, I did not have the
time/money to put everything together to be prepared for it. I just admire
those who do)

On the thread about machines which are already involved into decoding:
You are all perfectly right, RTTY is already there and I like RTTY contesting
as well. But why do we have to change our CW Contesting into a RTTY Contest
as well??? I feel that is what it is, if everybody does CW with a computer,
then it is the same like a RTTY contest, only using a different code. Just
recently VK5GN wrote on this refelctor: >>Variety is the spice of life. and I
doooooooo like a little spice in my life. << I'd like to second that.
This is the same reason, why I am not so sure I would like 1000 more entrants
in a CW contest all using computers. Even if they keep the flag of "CW" up.
But is this still CW??

The problem is we can argue on this forever and will still have 2 opinions
(at least). But if it goes ONE way ONLY, some of us will be bored and leave
contesting for good, I am afraid. 
Therefore we should maybe try to overcome this problem by setting up
different categories (a "hot" issue as well, I know, but I am trying to think
constructively) for the people who like to do it in different ways. Just
expand the Assisted Category and define the Unassisted Category somewhat
sharper.

What do you think?

One comment about where to draw the line:
it is very difficult to find the exact point. Because from one point to the
other it is always only a very small step. For example the sentence: if we
allow CW encoding with a PC why dont we allow decoding? It is quite logic,
but in the end this stream of thoughts may lead to full automation. What I
want to say is, IF we agree that we draw the line SOMEWHERE we better not
argue too much in detail about where we draw it. Because you will always find
it a little bit illogical if you look at the certain point where the line was
drawn. But the important thing is not that it is drawn exactly there, but
that it is drawn at all.
All the above applies only, IF we choose to draw a line somewhere.


Awaiting your comments

73 Con DF4SA

Cornelius Paul         DF4SA             CP2235 at aol.com 



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