Topband: Use of Remote Receivers During 160 Meter Contests

[Stan Stockton]

This has gotten off track.  The subject is not about your typical remote transceiver operation.  It is about allowing people to use remote receive locations with the transmitter located some other place than where you are operating the transmitter. 

Why the subject and possible consideration is titled remote receivers, I'll never know.  In many or most cases it would be more comfortable or less expensive or possible to operate using a remote transmitter than a remote receiver. I'm defining remote as being located in a different location than where the operator is sitting.  

There are perhaps dozens or hundreds of locations within a reasonable distance of everyone reading this that could nearly tie for the best receiving QTH in terms of terrain and noise level.  There is probably a clear winner for transmit configuration and it probably isn't easily accessible, meaning the one serious enough wanting to win using the Internet as an integral part of making a contact might not want to spend the money to go there to operate very often.

The bottom line, in my opinion, is you do the best you can or are motivated to do with resources available and transmitters and receivers on both ends of a QSO should be at the same QTH.  

Remote transceiver operation is an entirely different thread, beaten to death in some people's opinion.

At some point in time a line in the sand needs to be drawn and maintained.  I'm hoping that occurs at a point where we have preserved some semblance of what radio is all about.  In my opinion, computers and the Internet are not integral to the art of radio communications.

73...Stan, K5GO

Sent from my iPad

> On Mar 16, 2015, at 2:51 AM, "n2kw at juno.com" <n2kw at juno.com> wrote:
> 
> In the beginning, "self-spotting" (on the cluster) was legal.That was when the backbone was on UHF.Using the internet to solicit contacts in a contest is not allowed. The "unsportsmanlike" use of a remote site, (IMO) only applies to internet access.If you engineered and built a remote site, and access it by amateur means, it is  (again IMO) a legitimate use of AMATEUR RADIO. Is it "fair" to have a tribander compete against stacks? The only RULES are the ones published.
> 
> ---------- Original Message ----------
> From: W0MU Mike Fatchett <w0mu at w0mu.com>
> To: topband at contesting.com
> Subject: Re: Topband: Use of Remote Receivers During 160 Meter Contests
> Date: Mon, 16 Mar 2015 01:27:40 -0600
> 
> 
> 
>> I strongly disagree with W2GD on one thing though. DX Contesting is an 
>> East Coast Old Boys' Club, and while it makes them happy and boosts 
>> their egos, it is NOT good for contesting in general. There is VERY 
>> little interest in DX contesting west of the Rockies in proportion to 
>> the numbers of hams in each region. It is LONG past time for DX 
>> Contest scoring rules to be changed so that those outside the East 
>> Coast are in the game.
> 
> I agree with you on this one but it is a different can of worms.  I have 
> yet to hear of a scoring system that would allow stations in the black 
> hole of middle America and west compete against the East Coast stations.
> 
> Since the organizers are almost all East Coasters there probably is not 
> much interest in changing their contests.
> 
> As K0EU said after the ARRL DX contest, he worked his ass off and 
> probably broke the record in Colorado  but won't even finish near the 
> top 10.
> 
> The only chance we had was when JA's could be worked for hours in the 
> evenings and we had to have decent EU openings.
> 
> Probably the only fair way would be to make each state effectively a 
> separate country and you would compete against people in your state, 
> which are about the same size as many EU countries, however Colorado 
> would never win the NA award.
> 
> I was surprised that 20m was not filled edge to edge with contest 
> stations during the ARRL SSB contest.  Maybe people are tiring of the 
> inequities.
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