[CQ-Contest] Blind Mode for N1MM Bandmap

[Pete Smith]

Well, I certainly didn't mean to imply that Dave was up to something 
nefarious.

My point with remote Telnet of Skimmer spots was that the decoding would 
indeed already have come into play, in determining which spots were 
Telnetted, so to my mind, at least, the Assisted threshold would have 
been crossed.

73, Pete N4ZR

The World Contest Station Database, updated daily at www.conteststations.com
The Reverse Beacon Network at http://reversebeacon.net, blog at reversebeacon.blogspot.com,
spots at telnet.reversebeacon.net, port 7000


On 10/23/2010 1:48 PM, David Gilbert wrote:
>
> Hi, Pete,
>
> Well, my original hypothesis didn't only include CW Skimmer ... it 
> included cluster spots in order to make the idea applicable to both CW 
> and SSB.  That would indeed mean that CQ'ing stations would 
> predominate the spots telnetted to N1MM in Blind Mode.
>
> Thus far I've gotten replies to my original post that could be sorted 
> into three basic categories:
>
> 1.   It would be OK for unassisted information to telnet spots to N1MM 
> for conversion to Blind spots because human recognition (decoding in 
> the case of CW, hearing the phonetics in the case of SSB) would still 
> be necessary to make the contact.
>
> 2.  It would NOT be OK for unassisted operation to telnet spots to 
> N1MM for conversion to blind spots because knowing that there was a 
> real station there (most likely CQ'ing), without the operator having 
> to do anything before trying to make the contact, would represent a 
> significant advantage beyond my original desire to simply make 2nd VFO 
> QSY more efficient.
>
> 3.  I'm trying to cheat
>
> At this point, I'm willing to accept that #2 is the conservative 
> judgment, although quite honestly I think that I can glean as much 
> information from a good waterfall display as I would be able to from a 
> bandmap full of blind spots.  I can easily tell whether a trace on a 
> waterfall is a station or not, and I can even tell whether he is 
> running or not by just looking to see if his trace consistently takes 
> up most of the span of the display.  Still, I'm forced to make that 
> assessment on my own without any assistance at all from anything else, 
> so that's probably enough to make a difference.
>
> As far as the opportunity to undetectably cheat is concerned, I've 
> never understood that argument.  If I wanted to cheat, there are 
> plenty of ways to do so.  I could easily:
>
> a.  telnet full spots from a cluster to N1MM and simply work them in 
> frequency sequence to simulate tuning with VFO B.  In my opinion, the 
> folks that get caught operating assisted while claiming unassisted are 
> either greedy or stupid.
>
> b.  use high power while claiming low power
>
> c.  cross reference the SCP file with various lists of submitted logs 
> to find the callsigns of stations who are typically active in contests 
> but never submit a log, and then insert them into my log as claimed 
> contacts.  If I had two or three co-conspirators, they wouldn't even 
> show up as uniques.
>
> d.  etc.
>
> You get the idea.  There are lots of ways to cheat that are at least 
> as difficult to detect as would be operating N1MM in Blind Mode.  
> Besides, if I wanted to cheat for unassisted operation, why would I 
> bother to pretend I was using Blind Mode ... why wouldn't I just use 
> normally telnetted spots from CW Skimmer or the clusters?
>
> Except for being accused of trying to subvert the rules, this has for 
> me at least been an interesting discussion and I'd like to thank those 
> who responded.  If anyone is still unclear regarding what my motives 
> were, please reread the last nine words of item #2 above.
>
> 73,
> Dave   AB7E
>
>
>
>
> On 10/23/2010 3:17 AM, Pete Smith wrote:
>> How would you implement this?  If you run CW Skimmer in blind mode, 
>> nothing gets Telnetted.  If you run it in normal mode, unless you 
>> tell it to spot everything, it will pick out which traces on its 
>> bandmap are CQing, and will only forward them to N1MM's proposed 
>> "blind mode" bandmap.  This would confer a pretty big advantage, 
>> making it, in my view, clearly "Assisted", and would be very hard to 
>> detect if one chose to cheat this way in the unassisted category.
>>
>> 73, Pete N4ZR
>>
>> The World Contest Station Database, updated daily at 
>> www.conteststations.com
>> The Reverse Beacon Network at http://reversebeacon.net, blog at 
>> reversebeacon.blogspot.com,
>> spots at telnet.reversebeacon.net, port 7000
>>
>>
>> On 10/22/2010 1:40 PM, David Gilbert wrote:
>>> ...The ONLY differences between what I just described and what I
>>> hypothesized as a blind mode for N1MM are:
>>>
>>> 1.  I'd be able to use the keyboard to change the frequency of VFO B
>>> instead of having to move my hand over to the mouse.
>>>
>>> 2.  CW Skimmer would determine for me (with probably less accuracy)
>>> which traces were stations and which were noise/clutter.
>>>
>>> If point number 2 equates to assisted operation, fine!  I can accept
>>> that and I have the answer to my questions.  I'd rather know for sure
>>> than sit here trying to guess.
>>