[CQ-Contest] WPX M/S "one transmitter"

[kr2q at optimum.net]

Tonno raised an interesting point about "one transmitter" versus "one signal."

Personally, I think the "one transmitter" concept if ideal for M/S (and not "one signal").

The concept of "one signal," as described, includes multiple transmitters per band, which
clearly must be interlocked to be comply with the letter and spirit of the rules.

I think having multiple transmitters per band will lead to situations where there are
two signals on the band at once, but unless someone happens to be very lucky and
discovers that by "accident," that entrant will be able (in theory) to violate the rules
and never be caught.  Even QSOs "in the same minute" can be argued (later) that one
QSO took place 00:00:00 and the other took place at 00:00:30.  Or more likely, that
one took place every 10 seconds, in perfect synchronization.

In CQWW DX, the odds of finding new mults on the 2nd rig, other than the very beginning 
of the contest, is not so great, so 10 minutes affords one plenty of time to grab all of the
available "new" mults.  In WPX, however, every 1:3 QSO's is a new mult for the entire
contest (just a guess at the ratio).  In CQWW DX, nobody works "so many" new mults in 
the allowed 10 minute window.  But in WPX, I can easily imagine that one would work new
mults at a very high rate by using (say) 5 rigs per band and each operator covering X kc
of the same band.  Each op tunes "their" segment of the band (say 20kc on CW) and finds
a new mult. When everybody is queued up with a new mult (no conflicts) and the 10 minutes 
"starts," they each take one turn working one new mult.:  Mult Op#1 works "his" new mult.  
The moment he is done, Mult Op#2 works "his" new mult., etc.  After each op completes 
"his" new Mult qso, he immediately starts to retune "his" segment of the band so as to find 
the next "new mult."  Or, each op is allowed to work 2 or 3 or even 4 new mults in a row
before handing it off to the next op to work "his" segment.  There are lots of approaches.

I do not think that this is the original intention of the M/S rule.  It sure does sound like a
lot of fun and a big challenge to coordinate the "team" (well, probably multiple teams: one 
per band), and would generate HUGE scores.  It is really more like a handicapped M/M.  
I guess Randy has to figure out if this is where he wants to go or not.

de Doug KR2Q