Topband: Brave New World

[Dave Blaschke, w5un]

On second thought, I retract my original objection; K4VV not being a RHR 
for money deal.

Dave

  On 2/26/2015 6:47 PM, Guy Olinger K2AV wrote:
> Well, I *don't* understand why people are upset about this.
>
> The K4VV crowd operated a station in Virginia that had all it's antennas
> and all the RX and all the TX on one local property. They reported their
> logs as VA, USA. That hardly seems a stretch of rules. The rules don't say
> anything about all operators eating a meal on the property during the
> contest to qualify.
>
> There are no biblical instructions about remote operating. No words from
> God. Just the rules put down by the contest organizers. The organizers get
> to interpret their own rules any way they want. Don't like the rules, then
> vote with your feet. Enough feet leave, they'll change the rules. But some
> of you are complaining about the most popular contests. Hardly any
> resounding protest exit going on there.
>
> So just what does a "right way" statement criticizing the contest
> organizers of a popular contest mean? Might as well say it's unfair to
> drive on the left side of the road while in Britain.
>
> The only possible cheating at K4VV would be that the remote operators used
> RX that were not at the K4VV site. But if you think about it, the RX with
> the antennas at K4VV are most likely far better than what the ops had at
> home. It certainly would be so for me. I would not bother to substitute
> anything at my site for the antennas and RX at K4VV. Good stations work out
> all the stuff I could hear at my station in half of the first day.
> Everybody works them. Working them is no advantage. The winners are made
> from the stations that work the Q's and mults I can't hear at all at my
> home station.
>
> People have done remote mountain stations for decades, along with legally
> using them in contests. They used UHF links or telephone lines and it was
> difficult, expensive. Ready-made equipment for those purposes was not
> available. Now the internet and galloping progress in circuitry make such
> schemes available inexpensively.
>
> Others will and have posted about people in retirement homes being able to
> continue their hobby remotely, vastly improving late-year quality of life
> for long-time hams. You gonna say fine, but you don't get to operate in
> contests? Come on.
>
> Others are complaining that remote stations in good places ruin
> competition. Really? When was the last time you competed with K3LR, or
> W3LPL? If anything, a station that can be staffed with anyone with internet
> access will tend to increase competition for LR and LPL. Travel in winter
> not needed, room and board for a mob not needed, taking Friday off for
> travel not needed, etc, etc., will tend to increase on-the-air band-hours
> in contests.
>
> Let's hear a complaint from someone who has a few first place finishes, who
> thinks "cheaters" doing remote operating are ruining it for them. But you
> won't, because they will tell you that the number one factor in their wins
> was the team's operating acumen (that 27 dB between the ears), butt in
> chair, and preparation of station ahead of time. I don't hear Tim or Frank
> D. complaining. Those folks and their operating crowd turn in top scores
> from anywhere they operate. Therefore, using statistical logic, their main
> advantage must be in something they carry around with them everywhere, like
> something in their head.
>
> There have been and always will be cheaters who want the acclaim of high
> scores but who don't want to do the work to make it happen according to the
> contest organizer's rules. Loading the entire 27 dB between the ears takes
> WORK, and cheaters hate work. Remote or no remote will make zero difference
> in that. Cheaters will always find a way to cheat. If not by remote, then
> some other way. Removing remote operation from contests will not encourage
> cheaters to do the work because they hate work.
>
> If anything, the electronic progress of various kinds seems to be
> INCREASING participation, which helps everyone. Folks will figure out how
> to diminish the lag problem. And over time will figure a way to do slick
> operating in spite of what lag remains. It will be neat to do one shift at
> K4VV from Los Angeles and then another one from North Carolina, with
> business travel in between. For many that would make a vast improvement in
> what would have been yet another deadly dreary travel weekend.
>
> Get over it. Deal with it. Enjoy the progress.
>
> 73, Guy.
>
> On Wed, Feb 25, 2015 at 4:26 PM, Dave Blaschke, w5un <w5un at wt.net> wrote:
>
>> Notice how ARRL is endorsing all of this. read that first paragraph,
>> especially: "The scattered K3TN team worked *via the Internet *through the
>> station of Jack Hammett, K4VV". I thought our hobby was about radio, not
>> internet.
>>
>> On 2/25/2015 9:05 PM, Eddy Swynar wrote:
>>
>>> Hi Guys,
>>>
>>> I am really & truly surprised that nobody here has raised so much as even
>>> an eyebrow at this story:
>>>


>>> http://www.arrl.org/news/no-one-in-the-shack-as-station-
>>> logs-4200-contacts-in-arrl-dx-cw-contest
>>>
>>> The whole notion---to me, at any rate---compromises the very essence &
>>> the "...joie de vivre!" of operating on 160-meters, don't you think...? And
>>> to imagine that one of the "perpetrators" in all this is actually exuberant
>>> about his accomplishment...
>>>
>>> “...'No one was in the K4VV shack for the entire contest!' said Mike L*,
>>> W0**, who took part in the contest via K4** from his own shack in
>>> Virginia..."
>>>
>>> This too is "progress"...? Oh well, I guess maybe it is. Time marches on,
>>> things evolve, things "de-evolve," & nothing stays quite the same.
>>>
>>> ~73~ de Eddy VE3CUI - VE3XZ
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>>>
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