[CQ-Contest] SO Categories

[Ria Jairam]

I've said much on this topic but I want to ask a few questions to those on
the "merge" side.

The motivation to merge seems to be that SO unassisted has people who cheat
and use unclaimed assistance. This is the established consensus.

- Those who currently participate as assisted, you're not being affected by
those who cheat, except maybe when it comes to WRTC qualification (I'll get
to that). So why are you concerned about cheaters who can't beat you? It is
clear that many in the unassisted category see a few cheaters as the cost
of doing business, and as Bob pointed out they get beaten anyway.

- Those who currently participate as assisted, you are being affected. So
why not compete with assisted who won't be using unclaimed assistance
anyway? This would free you from the burden of unclaimed assistance
cheaters while leaving the category open for us who operate unassisted for
whatever reason.

- WRTC qualification. Two things.
1. If a cheater is in a separate geographical location and qualifying area,
would it affect you?

2. Why should WRTC qualification not be on a level playing field anyway? I
am of the opinion that qualifying for WRTC has become a game of who has the
most money for the biggest stacks and kilowatts of power instead of
qualifying just the most skilled competitors. Maybe we should even it up a
little. Have one to two qualifying events per year, make it during the IARU
contest and maybe another like WAEDC for Europe and NAQP North America and
something else for other regions. Allow assistance to eliminate the
prospect of assistance cheating. Require it to be one radio, a single
multiband yagi and 100 watts. Presto - level playing field.

I'm not dismissing the fact that there is cheating - there is. But I am
puzzled why we have to use a sledge hammer to kill a fruit fly and why
people who aren't affected want to eliminate the unassisted category.

Ria
N2RJ
On Sat, Mar 11, 2017 at 10:25 AM RT Clay <rt_clay at bellsouth.net> wrote:

> >
> >With panadapters, waterfall displays, SO2R, and bandmaps allowed in
> unassisted it
> >is actually impossible to determine who is using Skimmer technology and
> who isn't.
> >If you disagree with this, please explain.
>
> I disagree. Unassisted and assisted are still quite different. The main
> difference with bandmaps/waterfalls is that they provide point/click tuning
> which is not sequential. They do not decode CW (this seems to have been
> forgotten in this discussion, or conveniently ignored to push an agenda) or
> tell you where multipliers are. If you listen to the audio of an unassisted
> op using a bandmap/waterfall, you are still going to hear them tuning in
> stations that are dupes- over and over and over. It just may not be
> sequential in frequency.
>
> And also consider...the currently required audio recordings can not detect
> use of assistance 100% to begin with. Suppose an operator not using a
> waterfall/bandmap peeks at the list of spots and uses this to choose the
> "best" part of the bands to tune for mults. As long as the number of spots
> used isn't large enough to be suspicious, how could an audio recording
> detect this?
> If the sponsors want a better way to check than an audio recording, why
> not require a video recording?
> TorN4OGW
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