[CQ-Contest] Technology Pushes Us Forward

[Jon, W4ZW]

With log checking comes the incentive to seek excellence in our contesting.
That seems to me to be a worthy goal, whether it's for fun or for
competition.  I should think log checking is just one more element in our
technology driven hobby and like electronic keyers in the good old days,
will give rise to cries of foul play and uneven playing fields.

It seems to me that we should just have two classes, low power and high
power, with the present Station/Operator classes and agree that everyone is
"assisted."  If we use a computer, then we are assisted.  Computer keying,
dupe checking, super check partial, exchange databases, packet, etc.   If
you got it, use it.  If you don't, well add it to your wish list of yagi
stacks on mountain tops, and full point and shoot multi-transceiver
operation, etc.

I think the KISS formula works here as well:  Use all the technology we can
afford/master/cobble together or borrow and have fun. For one, as a little
pistol who just wants to have fun, log checking is no biggie.  I used QRO in
the DX CW contest for the first time, and managed to get a link to DX Summit
running on my computer for DX spots since I don't have packet here, and had
fun doing it.  I have Ken's DVK here and it's still in the plastic wrap from
when I bought it three years ago.  (Tells you how much phone work I do.)
But, I'm going to get it hooked up and working and try to get as much of
this technology in use as I can, simply for the satisfaction of doing it and
learning about it, and using it.  This has been the magic of our hobby for
me that has kept me active all these many years, and all of us who look for
the technology edges seem to find it in contesting.



Jon Hamlet, W4ZW
Casey Key Island, FL

"A little bit of paradise in the Gulf of Mexico"



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