[CQ-Contest] Non-assisted & Assisted

[David Gilbert]

My replies to your comments are inline:

Dave   AB7E


On 1/28/2013 7:58 PM, Rick Kiessig wrote:
> I guess I'm in the minority, but I'd like to voice my support for Randy
> K5ZD's suggestion to merge assisted and non-assisted.
>
> My reasoning:
>
> 1. Assistance works in both directions: When you're running and someone
> spots you, you're receiving the benefit of assistance even though you may
> not be connected to a cluster yourself. Since the bulk of QSOs tend to come
> from running rather than S&P, I suspect this is one of the main reasons why
> unassisted scores are still higher than assisted.

That's like saying there should not be a QRP category because QRP 
stations get a benefit (much easier copy) when working a QRO station.

> 2. You may want to compete against other unassisted stations, but you can't
> know for sure whether they're not assisted or just saying they aren't.

If I plan to operate QRP or LP I don't know for sure if the people I'm 
competing against are actually running excess power either.

>
> 3. The rules that make someone be "assisted" are fairly arbitrary and hard
> or impossible to enforce. If I left my PC upstairs connected to a cluster,
> but never referenced the data during the contest, am I assisted? What if I
> accidentally left my logger connected to a cluster for the first few minutes
> or hours of a contest, and glanced at but didn't seriously use the data?
> What if I was connected to cluster, but only worked the contest for a few
> hours and spent the entire time running? What if I'm connected to a local
> Skimmer, but I'm only using the data to determine propagation? I have my own
> opinion, but what if the Contest Committee investigates and disagrees?

It's even more difficult to enforce power level.  The rest of #3 is just 
shades of gray, and if you can't make an honest self-assessment of 
whether or not you received an undeserved benefit you can always ask the 
CC for a determination.

> 4. It's one less thing the Contest Committee would need to investigate and
> enforce.
>

And where do you draw the line on that?   Besides, it's the same point 
as #3.

> If the consensus is to retain the differentiation of assisted vs.
> non-assisted, then perhaps non-assisted stations should be required to
> register beforehand, so that clusters won't forward spots for their calls
> during the contest. Then they would be truly unassisted. Silly, right?
> Exactly.

Yup, that was pretty silly.  A non sequitur, actually.

> 73, Rick ZL2HAM
>
>