[CQ-Contest] Subject: "Reverse Beacon" Progress Report

[rt_clay at bellsouth.net]

>  
> I fear one of the most enjoyable parts of contesting are gone:  the thrill of  
> tuning across a rare mult calling CQ for the first time, and you nab him on  
> first call since the packet pileup hasn't hit yet.   
>
 
Well, I don't think the "sky is falling" because of Skimmer :) For one thing, 
running Skimmer locally as a single op (what I would call "unassisted") is nowhere as useful for finding mults as being connected to a worldwide 
network. It is still very much affected by everything else that  limits you: 
geography, local qrn, etc. So there  are still lots of times I think a single op 
can beat a local Skimmer in finding weak signals. I you don't believe me, 
try running it yourself.

One can also argue that feeding Skimmer spots into the worldwide packet network
will actually decrease the size of packet pileups. The number of participants in
contests is fixed (and as noted, not all use packet). Skimmer will greatly increase
the number of spots coming out. The result is that ratio operators/spots is going 
to go way down, so there will be fewer people calling any particular station that is 
spotted. 

And Skimmer doesn't take away one way to get  two rare mults: working one while
you are cq'ing, and then moving them to another band!

Tor
N4OGW