[CQ-Contest] Current thread on computer modeling

[Art Boyars]

YT1NT/VE3EA said:



*"In the golden days of professional HF it's more likely that they relied
more on the common sense rather than on computer modeling...."They did the
job in a sure-fire way: by staying away from the complex terrain, and using
flat sites with low horizon obstructions, for which a reliable analysis was
possible by hand."*

VE5RA replied:

*"Yes it's interesting how some believe their computer is a god, in some
cases rightly so, in others maybe not."*

This all reminds me of a discussion here (or on TowerTalk) many years ago,
where somebody said (paraphrasing), "Popular HF Prop Model A says one
thing; Model B says something different, so we don't know what's going on."

That was backwards.  The models gave different results BECAUSE you don't
know what's going on.

I'm reminded also of Jacob Bronowski's "Ascent of Man" series on PBS many
years ago (way before we had PCs or available HF prop modeling).  Teaching
about the medieval cathedral builders, he explained that they determined
the maximum possible height of a vault by building each successive one a
little higher -- over generations and centuries -- until the latest one
crashed.  Then they backed down a little.

I guess that's the stonemasons' version of "If your antenna stayed up last
winter, it wasn't big enough."

(No, I do not want to go back to paper logs and hand keys.)

73, Art K3KU