[CQ-Contest] Re: [ DAKOTA-HAM ] The Mother of all Public Service Demonstrations!

[Ford Peterson]

OK, please don't flame me for throwing a wet blanket on this idea.

Isn't the very idea of a *contest* 180 degrees opposite of what would 
need to take place in a real disaster? Contests get the blood 
pressure pumping and bring out those raw competitive urges; the 
desire to be the victor, the desire to triumph over your fellow man, 
the desire to put up huge antennas and buy big amps to thunder over 
the signals of lesser stations, the desire to muscle other stations 
off of your calling frequency, the desire to see your name at the top 
of the list in QST.

In an honest-to-gosh, flat-out contest, the *goal* is to win, to 
crush your competitors. In an actual emergency, the goal is to work 
cooperatively and synergistically with every other operator involved 
in the effort. It's not at all a matter of making more Q's than the 
next guy, it's a matter of having the discipline and restraint to 
stand by while a weak station with important traffic is allowed to 
get through. Contests (even Field Day, which is supposed to 
demonstrate emergency preparedness) are usually an exhilarating, 
wild, free-for-all with ample amounts of QRM. Emergencies need calm, 
cool, collected order and organization.

Contests are great fun and an enjoyable past time for a lot of hams; 
an opportunity to cut loose. Granted, they do build some operator 
skills, but what do they really have to do with the authentic 
conditions needed for effective emergency communication?

I think there are a lot of good operators out there who don't care to 
engage in the aggressive frenzy of contesting, or for that matter, 
busting through huge DX pile-ups (with all the swearing, jamming and 
DX cops). For some of us, life is too short for all that rudeness. 
How could an exercise be constructed that would include the all 
important "After you, my dear Alphonse" component? Is it possible to 
design a competition where the least intrusive, and the most 
cooperative, courteous and efficient operator(s) would win?

73,

Lee Blaske N0IZ

(BTW, I don't mind if someone cross-posts this back to the list where 
it originated.)


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>From Silver Ward" <hwardsil1 at mindspring.com  Fri Jan 25 06:22:34 2002
From: Silver Ward" <hwardsil1 at mindspring.com (Silver Ward)
Date: Fri, 25 Jan 2002 06:22:34 -0000
Subject: [CQ-Contest] target market: clarification requested
References: <00c001c1a492$22c375a0$8b67e00c at attbi.com>
Message-ID: <00e301c1a568$b0f65500$b5e7bfa8 at ward>


> * Speaking of the EUs, there 'radiosport' attitude seems to be the
>    right tack. Fox hunting? (a form of contesting!).. they go nuts for it!
>
> Ian, K5ZM

The spice in the fox hunting mix is hybridization.  It's not pure radio,
it's not pure hiking, it's not pure orienteering.  It's outside any one of
the three boxes.  An active, technically-inclined person can have their cake
and eat it, too!

In the spirit of those programs that generate corporate-speak project
titles, take one term from each of the following three columns and see if
something sounds interesting...

Column 1 - Conditional
High-speed
Low-altitude
Ionospheric
Mountain-top
Human-powered
Winter
Free-fall
Riverine
On-line

Column 2 - Activity A
Logging
Biking
Road Rally
Radiosport
Bingo
Bulldozing
Rocketry
Folk-Dancing
Poetry

Column 3 - Activity B
Archery
Spelunking
Hockey
Jazz
Chess
Canasta
Bowling
Skating
Mumblety-peg

"Riverine Radiosport Bowling" - hmmm.   Ionospheric Bulldozing Archery
anyone?  Free-fall Bingo Jazz!

Contesting today is in a pretty narrow groove (or rut).  It's a very high
speed game of electronic tag with a number of variants of degree and not in
nature.

N0FP's proposal regarding data transfer is an interesting proposal.  Imagine
a contest in which data files are passed from station to station, adding the
relay history as it goes.  You would get points for accurate relays, number
of relays, amount of data relayed without error, and for the length of the
error-free relay chains in which you participated.  A path-dependent score
is certainly a new concept - prototyped by the WAE QTC and the Internet
Sprint which passes along names.  A whole new set of strategy and technical
variables come into play.  I can imagine the resulting efforts to optimize
data transfer prototocols for radio, much as today we try to optimize our CW
and phone copying accuracy and pileup handling techniques.

The modern scenario of having a national official start the game and receive
the results is not at all new.  The first official transcontinental relay
tests in January 1921 featured message exchanges between the Mayors of
Portland, ME and Portland, OR, for example. ("200 Meters and Down" - p. 65)

Contesting was born of training and technical exercises.  What such
opportunities are there for us today?

73, Ward N0AX


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