[CQ-Contest] Packet absurdity

[John WA2GO]

On the more serious side:

Forgive me if this question is ignorant - I have never set up a station to 
use packet so I don't know anything about how it works, but... would it be 
possible to somehow authenticate every single sender and receiver of spots, 
in order to (a) require people to sign on with their real callsign, and (b) 
be able to tell where they are?  It seems to me that anybody who signs on 
using a different callsign (i.e. impersonating someone) is doing so because 
they don't want to get caught, which kind of implies that they might be 
planning to do something "wrong", or something they are embarrassed about.

I think there are some universal truths on this subject that we can all 
agree on:

1) Packet will continue to be used. It is unrealistic to think of "shutting 
it down" on a worldwide basis during a contest or otherwise.
2) Packet probably helps activity levels. Wost case, it has no effect. It 
doesn't reduce activity levels.
3) Some contesters owe some of their contacts to the existence of packet. 
Therefore, getting spotted increases your rates, because it adds contacts to 
your log that would have otherwise not been there. (I can vouch for this 
from experience being spotted, too.)
4) Making contacts on the radio is what makes contests fun. Endless 
unanswered CQ'ing is not fun.
5) Making more more contacts makes contests more fun.
6) Busting through a pileup to work a rare one is fun.
7) Tuning the bands to find a rare one while operating casually can be fun. 
But if you are operating casually during a contest, and you don't have a lot 
of time available to dedicate to the contest, it can seem unfruitful, or 
perhaps even frustrating because of the "needle in a haystack" effect due to 
the sheer number of signals on the band. Packet can help increase your fun 
factor by providing you with lots of pileups to jump into, and an easy way 
to locate the rare ones you are looking for.
8) If you are operating a contest competitively, and you make use of spots 
to locate stations you need to work, you are receiving assistance, and your 
entry category must so indicate.
9) If you are receiving assistance during a contest, then the degree to 
which you are aided by the assistance is proportional to the quality of the 
assistance you receive. For example, you receive bad spots, it probably has 
a negative effect. If you receive good spots, it probably helps. If your 
station is fully automated, it helps more, because you can get to the spots 
more quickly. Therefore, if you can spend more money to automate your 
station, you can take better advantage of the assistance.
10) The point of having different entry categories in contests is to create 
a level playing field within each category, to the extent that is practical. 
(Obviously, geography, available real estate, zoning regulations, etc., will 
favor some stations over others. But it is not practical to create a 
separate category for each individual station. It's always going to be a 
compromise, except in a controlled situation such as WRTC.)

Now here is where we stray into the debatable points. I don't think each 
operator would answer (true or false) the same way to each of these 
statements:

- The point of a contest is to have fun.
- The point of a contest is to win.
- Winning is fun  (if this is true, does it render the first two 
synonymous?)
- Competing is fun, regardless of results
- Losing to a cheater does not reduce the amount of fun
- Winning is satisfying, but only if it was done fairly


When one station has an advantage over another station, as long as the 
advantage is obvious and publicly known, it can be accounted for when 
evaluating scores. For example, it's obvious that a guy in Connecticut will 
have a better 40M European run than a guy in Arizona. Even if the guy in AZ 
is in the same entry category, he knows about his disadvantage, and he will 
factor that in when comparing his score.  Same goes for a guy with stacked 
monobanders vs. a guy with a single tribander.

But if two stations are both in CT, and station B uses packet spots while 
station A does not, and both enter as unassisted, then we don't have a fair 
contest. This is what is called cheating. If station B has a higher score, 
then did station B win? It depends on how they each answer the true/false 
questions above. But the fact remains that only one of them will get the 
plaque and only one of them will appear at the top of the results list. I 
think most of us know the real answer on this one.

When it comes to packet (or any other differentiator, for that matter, such 
as output power or number of simultaneous transmitters), I have only one 
request: Honest, truthful entries, and full disclosure of the advantages of 
one station over another. I am currently devising a means of adding a two 
character indicator to a score that will fully disclose the degree of 
automation used by a station in a contest, whether assisted or unassisted. 
(Let's face it, even a memory keyer or a DVK is a form of automation).  It 
won't have to be used to create new categories, but it will at least allow 
stations to make comparisons between themselves and others, and allow for 
differences in score based on those relative advantages/disadvantages that 
aren't reflected in their entry category. Stay tuned for more on that 
later...

At the end of the day, there is another universal truth:

Some day, we are each going to die. And at that point, none of this will 
have mattered anyway. So it probably comes back around to each person's 
individual definition of fun as being the only thing that does matter. 
Because if we aren't going to have fun while we're here, then why bother 
sticking around, right??!  Since different people can have different 
definitions of fun, we will have to all learn to play nicely in the sandbox 
together. Having (and following) rules is the way mature societies 
accomplish this.


And on the less serious side:

1) I think EI5DI's idea is the best idea I have ever heard on this topic.

2) My dog's name is Spot.  If I call him into the room during a contest, do 
I need to claim Assisted?

73,

John
WA2GO