[CQ-Contest] Recording your CQ WW CW contest

[Mike Coslo]

On Sat, 2007-12-15 at 08:02 -0500, Pete Smith wrote:
> I really wish people would pay closer attention to the second part of my 
> message, where I proposed monitoring of entire bands during contests, using 
> cheap, currently available technology. 

Okay, I'll bite.

Given propagation characteristics, tell us the number of stations that
need to be set up. On 20 meters, with it's propagation, it seems that
the answer is "a slew of them". I can't hear people in my state, but can
hear people across the country.

What you are proposing is a worldwide surveillance system set up and
operated by Amateurs. I have to think that the numbers of receiving
sites would have to be in the several thousands.

Who is going to listen to these recordings? Lets say we have 1000
stations for say a 24 hour contest.That comes out to 24,000 hours of
recordings (this is all grossly simplified, but hang on a moment)

If somehow a person could check everything in one pass,it would take
almost 3 years to check if they worked 24/7.

If we let him work 5 days a week 8 hours a day, no holidays, no
vacation, we're looking at over 11 years of effort.

These back of the envelope optimistic calculations, coupled with just
who is going to pay for and operate the system kind of dooms the
concept.

	- 73 de Mike N3LI -