[CQ-Contest] CR3L Should Reconsider Submission Catagory

[Ken Low]

KU8E wrote:

"Kelly, It's much more than just trying to gain an unfair advantage. Please reread the the first paragraph which contains words like "respect , fairness, ethics and fellowship". But the last one is the most important word - " sore loser "


I have been reading this thread with interest, and have a few thoughts (not to Jeff but in general):

Don't I recall reading once that KH6IJ used to start sending serial numbers with #100 or #500, or incremented them by two or something, with the specific goal of psyching out his competition?   And he's in the Hall of Fame.   I searched for the article where I read that, but was unsuccessful - anyone know where it is?   

Was KH6IJ's tactic 'poor sportsmanship' or just 'crafty'?   That's not so different from posting any score on an official 'brag room' site like 3830, in fact less so since it's after the event was over.

Anyway, with respect to CR3L, there's no way to know why their category was changed.   Maybe they examined their log after the contest, discovered they did not comply with the M/2 rules, and reclassified their log so they would not be disqualified.   

Maybe they had a new operator who did his best but didn't know the rules, and inadvertently made too many band changes, and it was only after the contest when a review of the log revealed it.  If so, this reflector should be lauding their fair play, instead of sniping about 'category hopping'.

Or maybe they selected the wrong menu option on the 3830 form when they reported the score - I have done that before too.

It needs to be acknowledged that for any M/2 effort to outscore a M/M effort from the same Zone is impressive in the first place, if indeed that's what happened.   It implies the M/2 team had superior operators, more hardware, better engineering, better strategy, better propagation or a combination of all.

It's no different from an Unassisted operator outscoring an Assisted operator with identical stations from the same location in the same event - it shows the Unassisted operator did a superior job of operating than the Assisted operator during that one event.   

For example, LZ4AX (Unassisted) just beat my LP Assisted score in CQWW CW from a similarly equipped station.   Alex executed better strategy than I did, and it simply provides motivation for me for the next event.   Even if my claimed score holds and I get a plaque for USA LP Assisted, it won't mean much.

A wooden block on the wall means very little if you know your score was not worthy of it, or someone else out-operated you.   That's another important aspect of sportsmanship.

73,

Ken KE3X