[SCCC] ARRL DX CW 15m SOHP W6YA

[Marko L Myllymaki]

Hello Jim,
Congrats for great result on 15.  I do not know where you found so many
QSOs on 15, maybe band was wide open to EU on mornings...
Wow, dark side, really ?  It is hard to see that we are still having
same cluster discussion after 2 or 3 decades.  It is getting old.  I
actually see your point and I would also like to turn off clusters but it
won't happen as it is not up to us.   World is moving on and we either
adapt or become irrelevant with the changes happening around us.
I have actually never done serious single op effort with cluster feed on.
(Yes, I had it on in several multi ops I have participated and for at least
decade or two it would have been suicide to be serious Multi Op without
cluster feed.)
Anyway, I decided to turn the feed on this weekend.  This was very casual
operation as I was actually not on for either morning at all, as I decided
to operate 40 until 2 or 3 am local time, had great dinners and watched
movie both evenings and slept in both mornings and did not get on until PM
both days.  Anyway, it was great experience to do casual operation from
home and have cluster on for the time I was on.  Lots of fun clicking
spots.  Again, I have NEVER done serious SO with cluster on.  I probably
never will, as I very quickly figured out with this weekends casual
experiment that it would add additional layer of complexity and challenge
to do serious operation and try to be competitive.  I just don't think I
could handle it.  One would have much more decisions and complex
management/multitasking to do, already with challenges of SO2R which I'm
still learning (and 2 pile-ups that are already coming as future
competitive requirement).  I also took quick look at submitted 3830 posts
and majority of SOABs are with unlimited category, so obviously it is
already more popular than non-assisted category.  So it is here to stay, we
like it or not.  Why don't we just move on...?

As far as being on DX side of things...  Yes, it really is challenging to
be target of those zero beat pile-ups.  There was only one DX all weekend
who did split one time I worked him, and it can help the situation.  I
don't know why more people were not splitting, other than there are
complainers of that too.  Bigger problem seemed to be "constant callers"
which I have much experienced on DX side and also now on this contest from
US side.  Multiple times station came back to me, but I did not hear it as
constant callers were still at it.  But what can you do ?  You need to
adapt on these nuisances and accept it is now part of the challenge...   I
also see you point of DX moving on with frustration.  Been there done
that.  I did it maybe 4-5 times last year in Mozambique.  I sort of
accepted it as new pileup formed on new freq. after couple CQs when
skimmers spotted me.

So all in all, my own views are evolving on this.  I don't like cluster,
but what can you do.  Let's all stop complaining and lets move on and
adapt.  Myself I will probably continue do serious DX contest efforts as
unassisted but will probably do more casual limited time operations as
assisted from now on.  I found it to be lot of fun, maybe more fun than
being without cluster.    I can certainly appreciate the high scores guys
are doing as assisted as I do think it is very challenging to manage all
the information and decisions with serious assisted operation.  It requires
more skills than being unassisted, but it will still require ALL skills of
being unassisted.  There were number of countries and new stations to work
that I just tuned on who were not showing up on my band map spots, so it
did not seem for me that one could get away simply by clicking spots
either...

If I get too much hate mail as reply I have big fat delete button on my
keyboard so don't mind you sending it.
73 de Marko N5ZO




On Sun, Feb 21, 2016 at 9:03 PM, Jim McCook <w6ya at cox.net> wrote:

> Call: W6YA
> Operator(s): W6YA
> Station: W6YA
>
> Class: SOSB/15 HP
> QTH: CA
> Operating Time (hrs): 25.5
>
> Summary:
>  Band  QSOs  Mults
> -------------------
>   160:
>    80:
>    40:
>    20:
>    15: 1076   112
>    10:
> -------------------
> Total: 1076   112  Total Score = 361,536
>
> Club: Southern California Contest Club
>
> Comments:
>
> Although we're seeing a big drop from the last cycle peak, 15 meters was
> very
> active and conditions were generally good.  15 was much better on Sunday.
> It
> was, as always, a pleasure to find so many old friends around the world
> that
> have been contesting for many decades.  It was a fun contest.
>
> There is a dark side, though.
>
> The negative effects of the skimmers and spotting networks were very
> obvious in
> this contest.  Rare mults were hounded by many stations who were zero beat
> with
> each other AND WITH the DX stations.  I saw several of these DX stations go
> away in frustration.  I still envision a REAL contest when all this
> hand-holding
> garbage would be shut down.  Support for skimmers and spotting networks is
> for
> people who want shortcuts and to avoid the real skill of hunting for mults
> themselves.
>
> Apparently the focus is on score, instead of the real accomplishment of
> doing
> it without having a "cheat sheet."
>
> Sorry, I'm very disappointed in what has happened to contesting for so
> many ops
> because of their use of technology at the expense of skill.
>
> 73, Jim
> W6YA
> _______________________________________________
> SCCC mailing list
> SCCC at contesting.com
> http://lists.contesting.com/mailman/listinfo/sccc
>