[CQ-Contest] Field Day & CW & 15 minute rule

[David A. Pruett]

At 01:12 AM 6/29/04 +0100, Roger Parsons wrote:
>I too wonder about the purpose of the 15 minute rule,
>and am quite sure it discourages use of 160, 10 and
>even 15 in this contest.

The reason this rule was implemented was to outlaw the use of an "octopus" 
or similar switching setup on Field Day.  For those not familiar with the 
term, an octopus was essentially a switching setup which allowed multiple 
radios, operating on multiple bands, to be interlocked in such a way as 
only one transmitter at a time could actually transmit, thus allowing the 
entry to be in a "one transmitter" category.  (The analogy is one 
transmitter per tentacle.)  So yeah, you could make QSOs on 160, 15, 10, 
and many other bands one at a time but still be "1A".

Don't be skeptical - this was actually done on at least one occasion and 
the ARRL decided (correctly, IMHO) that such a setup was counter-productive 
to the spirit of FD and created the dreaded "fifteen minute rule" to 
preclude it's use.

Dave/K8CC