[CQ-Contest] Young people / the thrill is gone.

[Sylvan Katz]

Jim George wrote:

> I agree with George.  I don't know anyone who cheats.  At the top levels,
> it is unheard of as far as I am concerned.

Hmmmm -- strange -- I have been to some large multi-op stations in the EU and in
rural NA. I have witnessed  linears running at more than 1 kw dc and I have seen
their scores listed in the major magazines unquestioned. It is definitely not
unheard of or unwitnessed but it surely goes unchecked. As I said in my earlier
posting the 'sport' of amateur radio contesting can not ligetimately be called a
true sport until it has the equivalent of drug testing for amateur athletics.

Another interesting area of discrepancy is the G stations that compete in the
high power class when the maximum legal limit in the UK is 400 watts. It seems
to me that ERP is a far better rating than dc output power. After all if we are
not worried about checking the linears then why should we worry about checking
the gain of the antenna - at least the antennas are up in the air where they can
be seen and verified by passers-by. By adopting a set of standard multipliers
for various antenna configuration the ERP can be simply calculated.

I would like to congratulate Guy Olinger on his excellent posting suggesting a
'positive' scoring system instead of a 'negative' scoring system. This is the
type of inventive and ingenious thinking that I like to associate with the sport
of amateur radio contesting. Now we have to ask how great ideas like this can be
implemented!


73 .... syl

--
Sylvan Katz
Saskatoon, Sask
VE5ZX & G0TZX



--
CQ-Contest on WWW:        http://lists.contesting.com/_cq-contest/
Administrative requests:  cq-contest-REQUEST at contesting.com