[SEDXC] Contest Scoring

[David Thompson]

A dozen years ago I sat on an airplane near Colin Powell's son who was then
FCC Chairman and next to a ham/engineer who had sold all his gear a few
years earlier.  The ham/engineer asked me if hams still used (in his words)
antique modes such as CW, SSB, or RTTY.  When I said yes Mr. Powell became
interested and soon I was outnumbered and outgunned.  Their argument
centered on amateur radio had always led in new modes.

We always talk about CW being able to get through when other modes won't.
But PSK31 can get through when no signal is readable to the ear!  Plus most
PSK31 users run low power or QRP.  The problem is that there are so many
variations of PSK and other digital modes (CW and RTTY are also digital)
that most of us are confused and find contacts are hard to make.  Plus I
mentioned PSK on one of the digital reflectors and I got blasted.  Reminds
me of the AM versus SSB of the late 1950's.

Steve Ford, WB8IMY QST Editor and Digital guru agrees that the tower of
Babel must be solved before we can make real progress.  Even digital voice
has two different approaches..a home brew one and one pushed by Manufacturer
AOR.

I wonder what the DOD/Military uses now that CW is banished?

As to scoring we have come full circle.  In the 1950's you ran low power to
win the ARRL SS as phone carried a 1.5 mult and CW 1.25.  Plus in the ARRL
DX you had quotas per country on CW but none on phone (then mostly AM).

The mode that has expanded rapidly is RTTY.  As N4ZZ tells me you get a
screen full of callers and you pick the one you want.  Sound like you can
turn the receiver sound off and just use the keyboard!

I think ARRL wants to encourage CW which still requires much simpler gear
(W7DRA enters the CQ WW 160 CW using a modified DX-20).  But as K4UEE points
out you can make more Q's on SSB per hour.  But if N4ZZ is right maybe RTTY
is the place to be.

just my two cents worth!
Dave K4JRB