[CQ-Contest] what is required of recevied audio, and whay

[Ria Jairam]

I think that this is a bit of a stretch, by the same token we should ban
second radios from "true" single op because a second radio looking for
mults is almost like having a second operator.

Let's all step back for a moment and not try to box everything that can
give someone an edge as assistance to the level of the assisted category
with the cluster. Inherently, someone somewhere will find an advantage
unfair. An op in Kansas can never score as well as someone in New England.
Or even an op on a hilltop nearly always scores better than someone in the
valley. An op with a K3 will score better than someone with a FT-101 and
someone with 500w cannot break as many pileups as someone with 1500. And so
on.

"True fairness" is for WRTC, where everything is leveled. Even so,
contestants can choose some things which are advantageous to them such as
logging software and transceiver. But for regular contesting, everyone will
have advantages and disadvantages. That's just the nature of the game.

I think we started to go over this cliff of "non-cluster assistance" with
the skimmer debate and subsequent rule but now it is going a bit too far.
Ham radio used to be about the advancement of the radio art, both in
technical and operational aspects. Some of these proposals in contesting to
cripple capability in the name of "fairness" truly make me wonder if that
is even an objective in the hobby anymore.

Ria
N2RJ