[CQ-Contest] Re; Skimmer Ultimate Setup

[Sandy Taylor]

It's not that Skimmer is a piece of hardware in your shack that makes you
assisted.

Like someone once said, anyone who doens't mine their own silicon,
germanium, manganese and copper to make their own radios could be considered
"assisted."

What makes Skimmer "assistance" in my view is that it does the heavy lifting
for you. To run Skimmer and not say you're assisted is like using a pitching
machine and calling yourself a pitcher.

None of the other hardware in a SO unassisted shack actually does the hard
part -- copying CW -- for you. Skimmer tells you who's there, where he is
and it's not much of a stretch before it automatically tunes the radio to
the station, calls him, types the call into the logger for you and acks the
QSO. That it may miss a few guys doesn't change that.

My god, man, if that's not bordering on assistance, than what is?

73, Kelly
Ve4xt



From: cq-contest-bounces at contesting.com
[mailto:cq-contest-bounces at contesting.com] On Behalf Of
steve.root at culligan4water.com
Sent: March-21-08 12:50 PM
To: cq-contest at contesting.com
Subject: Re: [CQ-Contest] Re; Skimmer Ultimate Setup

I think you're going to have a hard time convincing anyone that a piece of 
hardware in your shack suddenly makes you assisted. The defacto definition
of assistance involves information acquired from another person. If a piece
of gear
in your shack makes you assisted, then what is your receiver doing? Or for
that
matter your second receiver in an SO2R station? But none of this addresses
the 
real problem with Skimmer.
I really don't care if my competition uses a machine to copy CW. I do very
much care
if the guy I'm calling is using a machine.... For example, let's assume I'm
weak (not
much of a stretch there). I call K5ZD. Randy is going to know that someone 
is calling him, he's going to get at least part of my call, and hopefully
he'll
realize what "0SR" is and then call me. Skimmer wouldn't even know I 
was there. This isn't conjecture on my part but actual real-world experience
with Pete's
Skimmer setup. There were several days when I could call CQ on 20 meters
with 200 watts
and a 2 element Quad, and Pete's Skimmer was completely oblivious to my
presence. 
Imagine that happening during a contest weekend. No thanks, I'd rather work
people than machines.

Remember what Isaac Asimov once said:
"Machines are absolutely rational and totally unreasonable"


73 Steve K0SR


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