[CQ-Contest] The "Check" in SS

[Jim Cain]

I was beginning to wonder if the SS rules had changed, so I checked, so to speak, and in this case they haven't:

"4.4. Check (the last two digits of the year you were first licensed)."

"You" is a personal pronoun referring to a human, not a station or call sign. So, shouldn't multi-operator stations send a check corresponding to who is operating? Then again, since computers now are doing the operating, perhaps the rule should read "Check (the last two digits of the year it was first placed into operation)."

The SS originated in the 1930s as a contest emulating CW traffic handling (that's where the "precedence" comes from -- it's pronounced "pre see dunce") -- and each contact required a full "message text" to be sent. Maybe we should go back to this, and software could be written enabling computers to generate a random message for each contact. The "check" (number of words in the message) would of course vary from contact-to-contact. 

As Patrick McGoohan said, "I am not a number, I am a real man. "

jim cain, K1TN