[CQ-Contest] L.O.T.W.

N7MAL N7MAL at CITLINK.NET
Mon Jul 25 14:45:34 EDT 2005


Well Warren here's the answer: This is the original posting on July 16 on this subject, by me.
""This is an excerpt from the weekly ARRL Letter. It has taken awhile to get rolling but it is working very well. I've heard a lot of moaning and groaning because it's to complicated or to time consuming etc. So far I have DXCC so at least 100 countries have figured it out. It sure makes post contest stuff easy because all you need to do is upload your log to LOTW and you will begin receiving QSL's. It is a firm part of my post contest routine: email the log to the contest sponsor, brag to 3830, upload to LOTW and the contest is finished, it's really easy.
Try it, you might like it............"" That's what it, originally, had to do with contesting.
As usually happens it took on a life all it's own and went out on several different tangents, the most popular being "it's to complicated".
Now to answer your other comments; Let's go back even further to 30 years ago. I was at Dayton with a very prominent DX'er. We were at one of the DX hospitality suites and in walked Don Search. (For those who don't know who Don Search was, he was the devil disguised as the DX manager at the ARRL. Those who think LOTW is difficult this guy went over every single card with a magnifying glass.) My friend attempted to assault Don Search and I had to restrain him and Search's 'groupies' immediately ushered him out of the hospitality suite.
The point of my story is DXCC, from 100 to the honor roll, is a religion to many folks, held in much higher esteem than the Holy Grail. That is the reason for so much emphasis on getting it right. 
Unfortunately, like every other aspect of our hobby, DXCC has been 'dumbed-down' and has zero credibility today(IMHO). The recent acceptance of P5 is a great example. Also there is 'NO' licensing authority in YI, the military does not have amateur radio licensing authority, and if the recent YO stories are true where is the credibility in a DXCC award.

MAL                N7MAL
BULLHEAD CITY, AZ
http://www.ctaz.com/~suzyq/N7mal.htm
http://geocities.com/n7mal/
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Warren C. Stankiewicz 
  To: cq-contest at contesting.com 
  Sent: Monday, July 25, 2005 17:07
  Subject: Re: [CQ-Contest] L.O.T.W.


  I still don't know how this directly relates to contesting, but here goes.

  Dale Martin wrote:

  > and a lot more questionable as to validity?

  Here lies the heart of the problem.

  Awards like DXCC, and Honor Roll, et al, are exactly that. Awards. It's a 
  piece of paper (I have a couple on my wall), or maybe a plaque, if you're 
  one of the Deserving. Take your DXCC certificate and a dollar to Denny's, 
  and they'll give you a cup of coffee--but don't forget the dollar.

  The reason LOTW is requiring this complexity and level of digital signatures 
  is because the importance some hams have placed on the perceived "integrity" 
  of the program is far beyond the actual intrinsic value of the awards it 
  relates to. It's an award, not the Holy Grail, and too many people have 
  obsessed about it way too far for way too long.

  This is not a new thing. You can go back 15 years or more to the days when 
  DXCC was still mountainous stacks of paper records, and people would show up 
  with massive stacks of cards that all had to be reviewed one at a time, very 
  carefully, by people who worked long hours with little sleep. Not to mention 
  the amount of effort expended over whether some little group of rocks is 
  really a country or not, or whether someone was actually where they say they 
  were when they operated. To what point, to what end, I ask? In the end, does 
  it really matter? Should it have ever mattered?

  So long as hams view DXCC as the sine que non of amateur radio operating 
  ability, these viewpoints will always be skewed to what, to me, is an absurd 
  degree. It's time we stop obsessing about the perceived "validity" of 
  contacts made and submitted to the DXCC program, and concentrate more on 
  simply making the contacts themselves.

  With malice towards none,

  Warren, NF1J/6 


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