[CQ-Contest] Consider This

[Jimk8mr at aol.com]

In a message dated 4/24/02 3:00:54 PM Eastern Daylight Time, 
n2mg at contesting.com writes:

>  Why 
>  does SO2R stand out in some minds?  I sense it is not 
>  simply because it offers an advantage.  To me it 
>  almost seems like it is simply because it is a 
>  politically-correct-to-question operating technique.


SO2R stands out in my mind not because it lets a person run up a bigger score 
than would, say, a huge antenna farm, but because it leads to different 
operating techniques that while great for the user are not so great for the 
rest of contest community.

For years one had to, from time to time, abandon a run frequency to find the 
many multipliers - mainly operations that are the only activity from that 
country - who would never answer a USA station's CQ.  This would then open up 
a frequency that would be up for grabs for the first person who happened to 
arrive there.

With SO2R the savvy operator just keeps CQing away, while finding and working 
those mults on his second radio. That run frequency never becomes available 
for anyone else.

For a number of years this may have been a managable problem, since automated 
CQing was confined to CW, where there is just about always a little more room 
at the top of the band.  When voice keyers arrived on the scene in SSB 
contests, SO2R became a bigger problem because there is never just a little 
more room above 14350 or 21450.

SO2R is a natural evolutionary outcome of the quest for bigger and better. 
It's great for the guys who can equip a station for it and use it well. For 
the rest of us, forgive us if we aren't so excited by it. Tuning up and down 
a band listening to the same guys CQing gets old quickly.

Check out the phone DX contests in about 4 years when we don't have 900 KHz 
of useful spectrum on 28 MHz...

That said, I see nothing to be gained by making it a separate category.  I 
see no harm in making available the information on who is using it.


Jim   K8MR