[CQ-Contest] Contesting 'Bots

[S56A]

K5MO wrote: I'll gladly prefer using a key to  turning on a "station" and 
letting computers blather at one another unattended for a weekend under the 
guise of "ham radio contesting".

Computers are doing that already in my beloved closed field of chess!  They 
also do a lot of financial transactions unattended and occassionally cause a 
crash.

Ham radio HF contesting includes ionosphere propagation which might be 
simulated, modified in real time but we do NOT controll the Universe or even 
the Sun.

I vividly remember poor condx during first SCC RTTY contest which I 
organised!

On August 27th, 1998 an unusual star exploded some 15.000 light years away 
from us but
caused havoc in the ionosphere for the next few days.  It was newly 
discovered only 3 month
ago and named magnastar with the strongest magnetic field ever recorded of 
10**15 Gauss
compared with our poor Earth of only 0.6 Gauss.  Even sunspots produce only 
1000 Gauss outbursts.

I used oldfashioned keyer paddle last YUDX weekend and it was not much fun 
anymore :-(

73 de Mario, YU/S56A