Topband: Compuerized Contest Logging --- EPILOGUE

[EP Swynar]

Wow...!

It sure is interesting to see all the many different software packages favoured by different Hams in support of their contesting activities. It was eye-opening to see the width & breadth of what's available out there nowadays...

There was a specific programme that was suggested to me, & I've been tinkering with it for the past few days now. I honestly think that I finally may well have something here that I can use "post-contest", strictly for the electronic submission of my log sheets to sponsors in future events that I might take part in --- something that even I (as computer-illiteate as I am!) can use.

I remain hesitant, however, about having the computer beast actually sitting on the operating desk inside the shack beside me: the current technology has stolen away, right from under us, a lot of the fun that used to come in tuning, zero-beating, and unearthing DX "nuggets" on the bands, without most of us even realizing the loss. I personally don't want a computer to rob me of the fun that still remains for me in contesting --- if I ever actually wanted a "second op" to do all of my logging, transmitting, etc., I'd look up a friend (i.e. the living, breathing kind, Hi)...

I realize this kind of attitude does NOT a division leader in the final standings make, but if there's no actual personal challenge in multi-tasking & just plain surviving through through the "physical endurance" test that I think contests are/were meant to be, then we may as well all collectively just pray for the day that intelligent programming arrives on the scene that'll automatically tune, log, dupe, and do all of the transmitting for us, while we go off & do other things outside of the shack...

This increasing technological influx surely has to end somewhere, sometime, and I honestly do believe that its final evolution will ultimately ring the death knell of contesting as most of us have come to know (and love!) it over the years...

~73~ Eddy VE3CUI - VE3XZ