[UK-CONTEST] cabrillo et al

[Mike Farmer]

Hi all

 

I have followed with interest the last few days of activity on this reflector and, like John (G3LZQ), cannot understand what the fuss is all about.   Surely the onus for complying with the rules of any competition rests with the competitor and not the manufacturer of the tools used by the competitor.   If Tiger Woods were to use a club not meeting the rules then he would be disqualified or suffer penalty shots added to his score.   If contest organisers want to change the rules it is their prerogative to do so, if the lesser mortals do not like the rule changes they should make their feeling known and then vote with their feet.   ie I believe the Antenna restrictions placed on low power stations by the RSGB are not in keeping with developing your station by using Low Power and better antennas. So I have on a number of occasions told the HFCC and now do not take part.

 

Like Don and John I was (and remain) critical of many things carried out in the contesting arena.  John says that he has made his views known to the members of the HFCC and also says "I don't need to repeat them here as if they read this they will know who they are".   I disagree with this view, if John were to make his views widely known then the HFCC members would get a chance to see how much support those views have and then be able to access the need for change.  (That assumes that the HFCC are willing to listen and change)

 

John goes on to say "Not sure how many listened to the recent 160m SSB Contest but I for one won't be there next year." I would be very interested to know why John has made this decision as in less than 10 hours on Saturday (before the flu bug got my voice) I had managed 165 QSOs, 38 DXCC countries (entities), 8 zones and 8 US states. It was a low QSO rate, but that I find normal for S&P and it seems impossible to get a run going when using the FT1000mp without a linear. (Just to complete the picture the AE was a dipole 60 foot in the center dropping to about 20 foot at the ends.)

 

I have to disagree with the comments re-N1MM logger. I use it with a 17" monitor and whilst it is not ideal, I have found that most of the available windows do not need to be open all the time.  I just wish that contest organisers would accept that use of the cluster is now so common that it is an aid to the single op and (in my view) should not automatically reclassify a station as multi op.  This was a rule that was needed in the early days of packet but has been over taken by time and events.  That said using the bandmaps on N1MM to track where the stations worked are/were is a superb facility and much reduces time wasting waiting for a callsign to be sent.


That is my six pennyworth. It leaves me with 3 questions:

 

1.   Can we now forget about blaming contest organisers for changes to the rules?

2.   Can we now forget that software producers are not responsible for compliance with the rules? (Although compliance may well be a good selling point!!).

3.   Can we now accept that compliance with the rules rests totally with the entrant?

 

 

73 de Mike

G3VAO

(off to the Golf Course - retirement is hell)