[CQ-Contest] Packet, self-spotting and contesting fun

[Kelly Taylor]

Hi all,
A contest where one MUST have packet to be competitive does not sound like
fun to me.

A contest where one is able to use non-amateur means to solicit contacts
does not sound like fun to me.

A contest where multi-multis win based not on their operating skill but
rather their ability to pollute cyberspace with self spots does not sound
like fun to me.

The opposition to self-spotting springs, for me at least, not from some
internal need to be overly anal about rules but rather from the benefit of
foresight and what an awful mess the post-apocalypse contest would be like.
Multi-multis that don't have banks of towers but rather banks of computers
and operators plugged in, not to a radio, but to several Web interfaces for
packet clusters. Single operators who no longer tinker with antennas but
rather tinker with their high-speed modems trying to squeeze every last
kB/sec.

It is agreed, I think, that packet spots raise rates. So more packet spots,
more periods of raised rates, right? Then those stations who can raise their
rates by polluting cyberspace with their own packet spots the most will win,
no? So then the competition no longer, really, becomes about QSOs, it's
about spots. Who gets them and who gets crowded out.

These folks should go to TYPING class. Doesn't sound like RADIO at all to
me.

Leave the packet rules as they are and DQ the scumbag offenders. Let's keep
the RADIO in radiosports, can we?

Make it all legal and let's have some fun? Fun for who?

73, kelly
ve4xt