[CQ-Contest] The Skimmer Rule Challenge

[Stan Stockton]

>"Assisted" is simply a shorthand for defining the
> participation by an additional person or persons in an "operator"
> role who is not actually making the contacts.  Since the term
> first came into use, "assisted" has always meant another person,
> whether on site or remotely, who provided spotting information.
> "Assisted" has never been applied to productivity enhancing
> technology of any description - including those technologies that
> form the basis of skimmer type systems.

You are correct in the history of this, since Skimmer was not developed
when the rule was written.  However, there are a few questions.

1.  Was the rule made so that there would be a category for the vast 
majority who want
to compete using skill to find stations to work or was the rule put in 
place to create
a category where it would be okay by any means, other than another 
operator,
to make use of a list of callsigns and frequencies?

2.  Does it really matter what the source is for the list of callsigns 
to work if the end
result and benefit is the same for the participant?  How much difference 
in an individual's
benefit or operation does anyone see between someone calling CQ and a 
code
reader copying what is sent and putting the callsign and frequency on 
the operator's bandmap
and someone intercepting the transmission and feeding the callsign to 
the same operator's bandmap?

There is some question as to what the intent was in the making of the 
rule.  If there was a rule that
said you could only run 1500W with a "linear amplifier", I think it 
would be difficult to say that if the
amplifier was not linear that you could run more.

Stan, K5GO