[CQ-Contest] Mode 516 Suggestions

[W. Wright, W5XD]

The technology that interconnects devices of all kinds is going
to happen, with our without us. The amateur community can sit 
back and watch it happen while making misrepresentations to itself 
about how it  threatens the way things are, or it can do what it 
traditionally  did--be there. I for one owe my professional career 
to the hands-on abilities I got in my ham radio activities, and
so am unable to let Paul's comment go unchallenged.

To be specific about the implications of computer interconnect
for amateur gear: an ethernet connection on a piece of ham
equipment (or any other high speed digital connection) in
no way threatens a takeover by the feared "wirrios". Instead,
it will make all the things we do now cheaper, faster, and
more accessible. Granted these improvements will cause further
change, and not everyone is going to like the result. But do
we really think that amateur radio operators are going to
quit bouncing signals off the ionosphere just because its 
easier and cheaper to do ADSL to the local ISP? Of course
the answer is yes! But those folks are not "amateur radio
operators" any more, they have become internet enthusiasts
and have left the radio waves to those of us that want to
continue to use them. 

So on this topic, I repeat my earlier thesis: making
radio gear computer-accessible for every possible feature is
clearly the way to make them more and more capable of doing the
things we want to do--bounce signals off the ionosphere--for
cheaper and easier. And, from my point of view in the industry
where I work, the most logical extension from where technology
is today, to where it can be soon, is to use the technology
spawned by the world-wide-web to make it happen. COM ports
are certainly "not it", and I personally would bet against
USB as well. How many of you software guys/gals out there in 
cq-contest land know how to write USB drivers?. And how many
of the same guys know how to build web clients and/or servers?
And, if you don't have either skill, which one would you learn if
you factor in the impact that skill would have on your resume?
In my line of work, I read resumes of job applicants. The
right answer here in my world is (B).

If I try to put myself in the shoes of the TenTec management
that posed the question in the first place, the question
boils down to: "how do I make my gear sell the best?". I would
like to think of us hams as a techno-savvy community so the
translation would mean "how to I get the best performance,
make it available to largest number of hams, and sell it for
the least number of dollars?" And with that equation, I come
back to the same technology choice: do what the web does.

Wayne, W5XD

> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-cq-contest at contesting.com
> [mailto:owner-cq-contest at contesting.com]On Behalf Of Paul EI5DI
> Sent: Saturday, July 07, 2001 09:16
> To: cq-contest at contesting.com
> Subject: Re: [CQ-Contest] Mode 516 Suggestions
> 
> 
> 
> Wayne W5XD wrote,
> 
> > You buy your radio and the ONLY connectors on it are
> > power, 10BaseT ethernet, and an RF connector. You plug
> > the 3 of them in (the ethernet goes into a 10BaseT hub).
> >
> > Bring up your favorite internet browser, type in the URL
> > for the radio, and the radio serves up a web page with
> > its front panel on it and feeds your browser the received
> > audio.
> 
> It may not be obvious, but Wayne is asking us to consider "When is a
> radio not a radio"? and the answer is when it's a web-enabled
> computer!
> 
> I happen to have an always-on 1 Mbit/sec ADSL internet connection at
> home, in the shack. I can listen to "radio" stations, from all over
> the world, at CD quality, for as long as I choose.  But it's not
> radio, even when I'm listening to live feeds from repeaters or police
> scanners.  It's not radio because any RF component is absent or
> incidental.
> 
> Neither is it wireless - in fact, it's the exact opposite as it's
> dependent on wires.  I prefer to call it wired radio, or wirrio for
> short.
> 
> When contesters integrate their radios with web-enabled computers to
> the extent that the RF component is almost incidental to the whole
> operation, it's not amateur radio contesting, it becomes amateur
> wirrio contesting.  Sure, it's great fun, but then so is high-speed
> web surfing, along with instant messaging and internet telephony.
> 
> At what stage do we cross the boundary from amateur radio contesting
> to amateur wirrio contesting.  I believe it's when we make use of
> external real-time multiplier or DX spotting aids, regardless of the
> delivery mechanism - to include RF links and the web.
> 
> Let's hear from all you amateur wirrio contesters.
> 
> 73,
> Paul EI5DI
> www.ei5di.com
> 
> 
> --
> CQ-Contest on WWW:        http://lists.contesting.com/_cq-contest/
> Administrative requests:  cq-contest-REQUEST at contesting.com
> 


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