[CQ-Contest] More on "Why not allow packet"

[Art Boyars]

KI9A's suggestion to allow packet for all single op's, while not unique, does seem to represent, so far, a minority opinion.  Perhaps if he and the others who agree with him persist, then they will someday become the majority and the rule will change.  (I hope not.)

Nonetheless, his rationale -- that it would eliminate packet cheating -- fails when extended to other types of cheating.  Should we eliminate QRP and Low Power classes because we can't catch those cheaters?  How about eliminating Single Op because we can't catch the guys who operate together and claim SO?  Or maybe we should allow the use of non-amateur-radio means during the contest?

Anyhow, and more appropriate to the thread on the actual cheating, while this debate was raging on the Reflector I happened across this quote on pp. 106-107 of "Murder on the Trans-Siberian Express" by Stuart M. Kaminsky (copyright 2001 by Double Tiger Productions, Inc.; from the Mysterious Press, published by Warner Books, Inc., New York).  For background, the novel's hero is a middle-aged Russian detective, Porfiry Petrovich Rostnikov, whose avocation is weight lifting.  About to start a pre-competition workout, he has just described to 12-year old Laura some of the legal, but unethical, tricks some competitors use:
  "Do you do these things?" asked Laura.

  "No," said Rotnikov.

  "You do not want to win?" the girl pressed.

  "Yes, I want to win," he said, "but I want to win knowing that I have followed the rules, my rules. If I do not, there is no pleasure in winning, simply a trophy which I do not feel I deserve. You understand?"

  "Yes," said the girl. "I think."
Nothing new there, or in the current discussion on the Reflector.

But to tie the quote directly to the recent ARRL 10-meter Contest, I'll point out that almost all the operators in that 'Test ...   had plenty of time to read the novel while calling endless unanswered CQ's  :>)

73, Art K3KU