[CQ-Contest] The Unassisted Myth - Now the Rest of the Story: The Assisted Myth (?)

[Steve London]

There have been many postings on this subject I agree with: Jose, Ted, Doug,
Mark, Yuri, to name a few.

Those who recognize my call should know where I stand on this subject - I have
operated virtually every CQWW CW and Phone for the past 25 years, as well as
ARRL DX, IARU and other contests most years. I have done a handful of M/S
efforts from my QTH, guest operated at some M/S, M/2 and M/M stations, but
mostly, I have done single-op UNassisted, SO2R. Once, I did SOA, back around 
1990, and the only spotting network was the local, Denver-area, VHF packet network.

Let me give you a little different perspective, as a SO2R DX contester from the
western USA. We don't get opportunities to run nearly as much as those in the
eastern USA or Europe. The opportunities that we get to run aren't nearly as 
productive as those in the eastern USA. At this point in the sunspot cycle, we 
get a 6 hour/day running window to JA from 0730Z-1330Z, another 3 hour chance to 
run JA from 22Z-01Z, and sometimes brief, frantic opportunities to run Europe 
for an hour or two in the morning (14Z-17Z). Thus, for the majority of the 
contest, we are just another SO1R station doing S&P. The 2nd radio is of no 
value when you can't run !  To make matters even worse, the times we are running 
are not very productive on the 2nd radio. During those 6 nighttime hours of 
running JA (mostly on 40 meters), I'm just looking on 80 and 160 meters for a 
stray Canadian, Caribbean or South American station to show up. During the late 
afternoon JA run, I'm trying to use the 2nd radio to work Europe on 40 meters - 
but that is only successful if it's a good Europe opening. The best use of the 
2nd radio would be during the morning Europe opening - but the problem there is 
that with only one band open well to Europe (15 or 20 meters), the 2nd radio is 
on a marginal band. I frequently miss "easy" European and Mid-East multipliers 
because they don't answer my CQ's, and it's very difficult to find them S&P on 
the same band as you are running on.

 From the M/S efforts from my own QTH, I have discovered how advantageous it is 
to have the benefit of a spotting network, even without a world-class antenna 
farm. You no longer have to worry about missing easy multipliers during short 
openings - you can simply point-and-click on them. Having the spotting network 
also enables you to work multipliers that are buried in the USA QRM, that you 
would never have independently found doing S&P on a 2nd radio. I always 
considered myself a pretty good SO2R operator, but doing M/S from my own QTH, 
with a spotting network, opened my eyes as to how many mults I was missing, 
compared to SO2R.

The point of all of this is that, properly done, being single-op ASSISTED would 
be a significant advantage over SO2R UNassisted in this part of the USA. 
Personally, I enjoy being UNassisted. I have nothing against having an ASSISTED 
category, it's just not my fancy. Those who want to combine them into a single 
category, based on the distinction being unenforceable are just plain wrong - 
the major contest adjudicators can and do find cheaters. Mostly, they are 
quietly reclassified or deleted from the final results, but they are being found.

73,
Steve, N2IC