[CQ-Contest] New Contesting Classification

[Paul O'Kane]

On 04/10/2016 07:09, Jukka Klemola wrote:

<snip>

> I have, between my lips and my transmitter, I have a bunch of relays,
> capacitors and a transformer or two.
> And there is a computer, it's whole infrastructure whatever there is ..
> I had a computer that used two sound cards. When on phone, my spoken signal
> went into one and came out from the other sound card before entering the
> radio,
>
> And, when using computer voice keyer, it was all bits and going to the
> radio in some sort pieces.

Jukka is describing what is commonly known as a
station, and the contesting community acknowledges
that stations take up physical space.  The 500-
metre radius rule is intended to assign a limit
to the physical space permitted.  What operators
do within that space and what technologies they
use are mostly irrelevant.

However, with internet remote operation, QSOs are
hosted on the internet, and no QSO is possible
without the internet.  In those circumstances the
internet serves both to control the remote station
and as a carrier of the information sent and
received (the communications) between the operators.

Those QSOs differ from hands-on QSOs. They may be
legitimate and valid QSOs under most contest rules
(not including IOTA) but they depend for their
existence on both ham-band RF and the internet.
They represent hybrid communications, and that is
more than enough reason for them to be classified
separately from ham-radio QSOs.

Others who wish to take me to task over "special
cases" of remote operation (including, for example,
various lengths of CAT6 cable) should be prepared
to first deal with internet-hosted remote operation
- because that's the method of choice these days.

73,
Paul EI5DI