[UK-CONTEST] Revised Rule for the use of the DX Cluster in RSGBVHF/UHF Contests

[Paul O'Kane]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Roger Parsons" <ve3zi at yahoo.com>

> At the risk of (re)opening a can of worms, I have
> never been able to understand the subtle distinction
> between (a) external assistance in real time during
> the contest from the cluster

That is real-time assistance from other individual
operators.  The information (callsign and frequency)
is not available from any other source.  It's no
different, in my book, from multi-op.

>  and (b) external assistance in real time during the
> contest from a database.

I see this as "internal" assistance.  The information
could be in your head (we all know that the UK is CQ
Zone 14), or in a callbook, or in your own computer
files.  The point is you have the information before
the start of the contest.  If you're talking about
accessing someone else's database during the contest,
via the internet or otherwise, to pre-fill the
exchange, it's another matter altogether.

Nevertheless, it seems to me (flame suit on) that it's
pointless for contest organisers, HF or VHF, to require
the exchange and logging of information that is known
in advance, or can be accessed from any callsign
database - whether local or external.

I know that the exchange info may determine points (by
distance) or multipliers, but it's not essential for
this to be known precisely in real-time.  After all,
HF contest logs are now in the Cabrillo format. They
contain no scoring information for individual QSOs -
the logs are scored independently by the contest
organisers.

Information which is non-unique, or can be derived
from the callsign, may no longer be worth exchanging.

73,
Paul EI5DI