[CQ-Contest] Determining ASSISTED vs NON-ASSISTED -- was: =>RE:Cheating and bad journalism

[JVarney]

K0HB wrote:

"A panadapter or bandscope gathers no callsigns or other station information, just a general view of band conditions."

Right, but imagine it's Sunday, late in a contest and you're S&P'ing for new stations. The panadapter will show a new signal instantly, let's say 100 KHz away from where you are currently tuned. Point and click to tune the new signal to listen for the call sign, it's a new one, so you make the QSO for the log. Wham, bam, done.

Now consider blind manual VFO tuning. You have no idea there's a new signal 100 KHz away. You only discover it after spending perhaps a full minute scanning the band, checking other signals as you turn the knob, until you happen to encounter the new signal. 

We have all heard some stations give up after making only a few CQ's. It's entirely possible that the panadapter station makes the QSO, by snagging the new caller quickly, while the band scanning manual VFO tuner doesn't get the QSO because the CQ'er gave up before the manual operator could get there.

Under this scenario panadapters do provide a limited assist compared to manual tuning. In VE3GTC's post, I think he was suggesting there should be a wider gap between Unassisted vs. Assisted. One way to do that is to make Unassisted equal to traditional radio in its purest form, which is turning a VFO knob with no technological assistance whatsoever. Then allow Assisted or Unlimited to have all of the tools and toys at their disposal.

73 Jim K6OK