[CQ-Contest] polishing my English re Skimmer

[David Gilbert]

That's really pretty funny considering that you cannot in the least tell 
on the air whether the person you are working is using CW Skimmer or not.

Your English may be fine but your logic definitely is not.  You can 
think of CW Skimmer as simply the combination of a few other things that 
have been in existence (and legal for contesting) for many years:

a.  CW decoders

b.  spotting networks (when claiming an assisted category)

c.  bandmaps

Your rant is sadly misplaced.  I can think of other things like Super 
Check Partial and "History" Files generated by others that have 
contributed far more to the lessening of skill in radiosport than does 
CW Skimmer, and I can almost guarantee that you use your logger or a 
memory keyer to actually send CW instead of using a hand key dit-by-dah 
as did those "founding users" (whatever that means). And you do know 
that hams, including those who use CW Skimmer, are pretty much the only 
ones keeping this elegant communication mode alive, right??  All those 
other users simply abandoned it long ago in favor of modes requiring 
even less operator skill.

For the record, I have never used CW Skimmer in text decode mode during 
a contest ... but I see absolutely no difference between it and other 
forms of assistance when following the rules of the contest.  Please 
explain to me how I am wrong ... but try using logic this time.

Dave   AB7E




On 11/29/2012 2:05 AM, Charles Harpole wrote:
> I enjoy trying to use the English language to be specific and expressive.
> Here is my latest effort..............
>
> The CW Skimmer is an obscene perversity of ham radio.  All the art and
> skill of this elegant communication mode, CW, is destroyed.  The founding
> users of Morse Code, who saved ships and passed millions of messages vital
> and mundane, are dishonored.  The joy of doing a difficult activity well is
> lost.  Ham radio in general and contesting specifically is changed forever
> for the worse by this abomination.
>