[CQ-Contest] Dead horse: CQ WW rules apparently prohibit CW Skimmer

[Richard Ferch]

Scott Robbins said:

> The rule says:
>
> The use of DX alerting assistance of any kind places the station in 
> the Single Operator Assisted category.
>
> I don't think the language is ambiguous.  It says "of any kind".

By that argument we should not be allowed to use radios. A radio is, after
all, a tool to assist humans to communicate, i.e. it is assistance "of any
kind". Truly unassisted contesting would consist of a bunch of people
standing naked in a field, either waving their arms ("CW") or yelling
("phone") at each other. No loudspeakers, no semaphore flags, no coloured
clothing, no eyeglasses, no hearing aids, no periscopes, no binoculars, ...
- also, no help from a neighbour tapping you on the shoulder to point out
that there is a new contact in a different direction than where you were
looking.

Like it or not, the question is not whether we use assistance, it is what
kinds of assistance are permitted. No-one seems to be complaining about
using DSP, separate RX antennas, sub-receivers, or spectrum displays - isn't
the skimmer just a logical extension of these operator aids? Sooner rather
than later, the skimmer technology is going to be incorporated directly into
radios instead of requiring a separate PC. Is someone using an IC-756 Pro
IV, an FT-3000 or an Orion III going to be considered "assisted" while
someone using a Pro III, an FT-2000 or an Orion II is not?

I believe that many of us probably used to interpret the DX alerting
assistance rule to mean no help, direct or indirect, from persons located
off-site, to go along with the rules about help from persons on-site (the
single-op rule) and from equipment located off-site (the 500 meter rule).
The skimmer threatens to make off-site DX alerting obsolete because it does
the same thing more effectively, but that doesn't necessarily mean that it
violates the rule about DX alerting.

73,
Rich VE3KI