[CQ-Contest] Americas Cup Sailing - Watch and Learn

[RT Clay]

>On Sunday, June 11, 2017 9:43 AM, N4ZR <n4zr at comcast.net> wrote:
>
>
>
>OK - so where is our "bright line"?  I've been arguing the need for a 
>consensus on this for a decade.
>
>I hope nobody will consider me a Luddite - Iwrote arguably the first 
>computer contest logger with integrated CW (for the TRS-80 Model 100 and 
>Commodore 64) back in the 1970s, and I'm one of the founders of the RBN.
>


>CW and SSB - all decoding and transcription of transmissions to be done >by use of a human brain.  Yes, I know this "discriminates" against 
>people who don't know CW, but it's a small price to pay to prevent the 
>advent of truecontesting robots.


This of course also eliminates the current assisted classes because of Skimmer. And if it has to be the entrant's own brain, then it eliminates dx clusters since there someone else copies the callsign.

>RTTY/Digital - no modes that are capable of receiving below 0 SNR


I don't see this as workable. One problem is that SNR depends more strongly on the 'N' (local noise) and how good your antennas are. There are also very real physics limits to what SNR can be achieved. You can lower SNR, but at the same time you must increase the length of the qso and at some point it is not worth waiting for a contest qso when others are available. We are already seeing these limits- the most sensitive digital modes (for example WSPR) are not used in contesting.

Tor

N4OGW