[Skimmertalk] Archive?

[David Gilbert]

The first statement isn't even remotely true.  If it were, the 
organizers of a bicycle race held on city streets would be required to 
allow legless individuals to compete on mopeds.  I'm confident that you 
cannot find, either from the ADA website or any other ruling you can 
find, a case where the ADA has been applied for any similar activity as 
you claim it should be for CW in an amateur radio event.

Regarding your second statement, that may or may not be true.  The fact 
is that the contest sponsors can make any changes they want to, either 
in rules or category definitions, in order to adjust to evolving 
technologies.  More to the point is that you've tried to create a red 
herring by equating CW Skimmer with simple CW decoders, and to quote the 
recent ruling in Parhat v Gates 
(http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/06/30/court.poem/index.html ), saying 
it three times (or more) doesn't make it true.

Dave   AB7E



Joe Subich, W4TV wrote (in separate postings):

1.  ADA applies to all activities conducted on/in public facilities and 
all facilities open to the public.  The amateur spectrum is certainly 
a "public facility."

2. The rules as currently written do not require a specific method
of detection.  To change them after more than 10 years in which 
CW decoding has been used and now that a non-trivial number of 
participants use decoders would be a travesty.