[CQ-Contest] Attention CQWW SO2R Competitors

[Michael Adams]

It might be helpful if, when considering changing the rule, the rule-makers considered what it is that they're trying to accomplish with the recordings.

The current rule states that a recording must capture the TX and RX audio _as received by the operator_ (emphasis added).

Under certain conditions / a certain style of SO2R operating, the operator won't necessarily hear their TX audio; they may be sending on one radio while listening to the other with both ears.  Under the current rule, the TX audio will therefore not always be present in the recording.

The current rule has the nice feature of only requiring splitting the SO2R-audio-to-headphones line to connect a recorder.  Relatively easy.

An alternative rule would be to require a recording of the RX/TX audio from each radio.  This has the advantage of making it clear what is being heard/sent on each radio through the contest, but it isn't necessarily indicative of what the operator is hearing.  This should also be relatively easy to accomplish, although the details may vary somewhat in different stations, and you're probably going to need an extra recorder.

It sounds like Steve's suggesting that there could be a rule change saying that you need a recording containing both what the operator hears, and the TX audio even when not heard by the operator.  If I'm not mistaken, that will require some new audio switching hardware/software to facilitate the recording, or some operators will be obliged to change their preferred style of audio-switching.  The former doesn't seem appropriate, at least not without a significant amount of advance warning; and the latter seems to inappropriately infringe on choice of operating strategy.

If the committee believes that they need recordings of what the operator hears and TX audio, it'd be much simpler (albeit more cumbersome) to accept three recordings from an SO2R entrant:  headphone audio, radio 1 (with monitor) audio, and radio 2 (with monitor) audio.

-- 
Michael Adams | mda at n1en.org

-----Original Message-----
From: CQ-Contest [mailto:cq-contest-bounces at contesting.com] On Behalf Of Jorge Diez - CX6VM
Sent: Wednesday, 28 June, 2017 13:18
To: n2ic at arrl.net
Cc: kr2q at optimum.net; Bob Naumann <w5ov at w5ov.com>; cq Contest <cq-contest at contesting.com>; w4pa >> Scott Robbins <w4pa at yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: [CQ-Contest] Attention CQWW SO2R Competitors

Steve

actually the transmitted signal must be present on the recording

*C. Audio Recordings:* Any single operator entrant (see V.A.1) competing for a top three finish at the (a) World, (b) Continent, or (c) USA levels, must record the transmitted and received audio as heard by the operator for the duration of the contest operation.

So if will be a change would be nice to know about that, many people working on this, big companies like Elecfart are working on a firmware to improve that and make it easy for the simple operator to do the recording that cqww cc ask for

73,
Jorge
CX6VM/CW5W