[CQ-Contest] Reverse Beacon Network News - the lost art

[Shane Mattson-->K1ZR]

I wish all ops were like Joe.  Point, click and then tweak the RIT to off-set his signal which helps the receiving station differentiate him from the point and click ops.  Now that I'm seriously back into this game after a few years of off-time the one big change that I'm not fond of for use in contests (most importantly the 4 majors) is the Skimmer.  Call me old fashioned....call me whatever you'd like however I think the Skimmer takes the spirit out of cw contesting and makes it too easy for everyone.  Manually finding stations and spotting them on the cluster now seems like the pure method (despite busted calls from poor ops)......ironically when packet was introduced it was met with the same resistance the skimmer has received.  The difference is that packet requires a human to find a station and post it on the cluster.  In the old days the challenge was to be the first to find a juicy multiplier and decide whether or not you wanted to post it on the cluster or make someone else work for it.  Using automation to find stations and post to the cluster is dumbing down the art of a human being finding unworked stations.  I appreciate the side of the casual op looking to squeeze in some operating time and thus use the Skimmer spots to maximize their score during their limited on-time, however my belief is that the use of such automation will adversely affect the 'art' of the sport in the long run.  Yes, this topic has been beaten to death.....and the contesting community has made very good points on both sides.  I'm all for new technology to help become a smarter, more efficient operator however using technology to find stations during a contest without human intervention is taking it a bit too far. 

  

I absolutely love the use of the RBN s/n analysis tool which I use to compare my signal to other competitors after each contest.  This is great use of technology! 

  

-Shane K1ZR (SO no nothin' forever) 

  

    


----- Original Message -----
From: "Joe" < nss @ mwt .net> 
To: cq-contest at contesting.com 
Sent: Monday, August 13, 2012 10:16:10 AM 
Subject: Re: [CQ-Contest] Reverse Beacon Network News - hopefully of         generalinterest 


Sig 
On 8/13/2012 7:20 AM, Martin , LU5DX wrote: 
> I surely also understand Jim's concerns about gigantic pile ups with 
> all stations calling exactly in the same frequency due to the RBN 
> spots. I hope it is just a matter of time till ops realize we need to 
> start calling stations a little off the spotted frequency. 

Really? 

I'm not a BIG contester , But have been contesting since 1975, LONG 
before any of this existed. And as soon as I heard a pileup made by a 
RBN spot I did notice how everyone was "Spot On" (pun intended) 

And my first thought if I was to use this RBN network, I would at the 
same time turn on my XIT to slide a tad off the mess some. I thought 
everyone would do that and that this was not a unique thought.  But I 
guess not. 

Joe WB9SBD 

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