[CQ-Contest] New Contesting Classification

[Jim Brown]

I strongly disagree. I'm lucky enough to have my own station -- I own a 
large plot of land and have built a nice antenna farm, so I'm happy 
operating from home. But MANY hams do NOT have that luxury -- they live 
on small plots of land, or in housing developments where, by conditions 
of their purchase or rental of the property, are NOT PERMITTED to have 
any antennas. And there are MANY hams who are surrounded by neighbors 
with multiple noise sources that make it difficult to hear all but the 
strongest signals on a band.

If you are one of those MANY hams who cannot build even a modest antenna 
system, the only thing available to you is remote operation.

Moreover, you clearly misunderstand remote operation. Communication IS 
via radio. The internet is no different from a telephone link to a 
remote site, or a radio link to a remote site. Several years ago, K3NA, 
W3DQ, and I visited an old "ship to shore" HF and MF station north of 
San Francisco. There are two sites about 20 miles apart, one for TX and 
one for RX, each equipped with multiple rhombics. The two sites are 
linked by a dedicated landline that carries multiple CW channels as 
audio tones of different frequencies, one for each transmitter. That 
station dates back to 1913 -- see this link for a description of the 
station.

http://www.ptreyes.org/activities/marconi-rca-wireless-stations

If that station were built today, it would likely use UHF or VHF radio 
or the internet to link the two sites. But that would not make it an 
internet system, or a UHF system, or a telephone system. It's STILL an 
MF and HF radio system.

Yet another example. W7RH, who lives in Las Vegas, built his station 
about ten years ago at a remote site in the Arizona desert, which he 
mostly operates remotely from home. During contests, he operates from 
the site to provide greater operating flexibility. http://w7rh.net/

Building a remote station is no small engineering feat -- it's a LOT 
more complex than opening a box, pulling out a radio that you've bought, 
and hooking it up to an antenna. Remote control is a complex engineering 
problem, and the guys who have built good remote stations have my respect!

Someday, old age or bad health may force us to give up this lovely home 
in the mountains, but I hope that I can continue to operate some station 
remotely. And when I do, I will consider it "real" ham radio.

73, Jim K9YC

On Sat,9/10/2016 6:47 AM, Paul O'Kane wrote:
> If ever there was a group of operators who should be
> classified separately, it is remote operators.
>
> Why?  Because the facts are that -
>
> 1.  Those operators are at all times communicating over the
>     internet.