[RTTY] Digital DXCC or ARRL Board of Directors, respectfully: have my strong disagreement

Jeff Blaine keepwalking188 at yahoo.com
Tue Aug 2 15:47:35 PDT 2011


I agree.  This is a mistake.  RTTY is a fundamental and historical mode.  CW, SSB, RTTY.  Dropping it in favor of a generic Digital 
tag does not provide proper respect for a core mode.  I can see something (also traditional) like SSTV being logically called 
Digital.   But this is a minor mode as is PSK and all the other digital variants.

RTTY because of it's fundamental place in radio history, strong use in modern times, and huge growth rate, deserves to remain a 
separate category.  I can only believe that the league did not have an adequate understanding of the prevalence of RTTY when 
considering their vote otherwise they would have left RTTY as a separate and distinct entity.

73, Jeff ACØC
www.ac0c.com

-----Original Message----- 
From: iw1ayd
Sent: Tuesday, August 02, 2011 5:32 PM
To: rtty at contesting.com
Subject: [RTTY] Digital DXCC or ARRL Board of Directors, respectfully: have my strong disagreement

Hi to all.

Just to read the doc abou and not my personal opinion go there:

http://www.arrl.org/files/file/About%20ARRL/Board%20Meetings/2011%20Second%20MeetingMinutes%281%29.pdf

( Take care of the URL line fragmenting and about the dead space
representation as %20 )


Abstract from "Minutes of the 2011 Second Meeting - ARRL Board of
Directors - July 15-16. 2011"

29. On motion of Mr. Fenstermaker, seconded by Mr. Edgar, the following
resolution was ADOPTED:
WHEREAS the DX Advisory Committee (DXAC) was charged to investigate many
aspects of the ARRL DX program; and
WHEREAS Amateur Radio technology has advanced to include many variations
of digital communication; and
WHEREAS the DXAC has recommended changing the DXCC Award category from
RTTY to Digital or RTTY/Digital or Digital Mixed; and
WHEREAS the Programs & Services Committee (PSC) deliberated this change
and, along with ARRL staff believe the best revised name for this award
is Digital DXCC, and
WHEREAS, the ARRL thanks the DXAC for its work on this name change;
Therefore, it is RESOLVED that the ARRL Board accepts the recommendation
of the PSC to change the title of the RTTY DXCC Award to the DIGITAL
DXCC Award.


What to say, there are no reasons nor facts by any means about the
decision taken inside that document, as seen here in the abstract.
The phrase " WHEREAS Amateur Radio technology has advanced to include
many variations of digital communication ...", tells by itself all.
Technology have changed a lot since the radio was only used for CW,
sparking or funk (DL), in the meantime, since than and until quite now,
there weren't changes in the radio technologies, accordingly to this
2011 sentence: unbelievable.

So, RTTY was RTTY, Phone was Phone and CW was CW. Now, 2011, the
silliest and subtle discovery that whatever is not Phone or CW must be
called Digital, like several appliances we have on hands or at home. So
CW, a digital mode by default and by any mean, will remain unDigital as
Phone, they couldn't could not be assimilated. RTTY, that by itself
haven't any remarkable nor visible soul as Phone o CW, instead will be
fully assimilated. Yes like the Star Trek saga, "Any resistance will be
futile ...". In the movie that was a nice characterization, now it is
only an awful envision at best.

Instead to clearly change anything, i.e. adding a Digital DXCC award -
yes why not, now we are all assimilated as Digital Borg. Worst, leaving
out more than half of the world that is already digital since than. The
sacred soul of CW and its big weapons. Playing  between presence or
absence of a single signal and coding signs accordingly mean enough
digital to my, any(?), eyes and my ears, but I would not start a
religious discussion there. All the old DEC self instruction tapes have
already made this point strong enough in the NRZ signals chapter, almost
35 years ago (just the clock/timing recovering may seems to gets out of
the picture ... fuzzy or not fuzzy). Well done, another foot in the
grave and nobody know how many of those we have to spare.

Nemo propheta in patria.


                               73 de iw1ayd Salvo





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