[UK-CONTEST] Death to the cluster!

[Steve Wilson, G3VMW]

"Paul O'Kane" <pokane at ei5di.com> writes:

 >The question is whether all new technologies (for want of a better 
 >description) are appropriate in the context of contesting. Your agument 
 >seems to be they are - simply because they exist.

I don't want to take up much more bandwidth with what effectively just 
becomes a difference of opinion between us. In the end, I guess we'll 
have to agree to differ?

However, just a few final comments:

You said: "If PacketCluster is appropriate, why has the telephone system 
never been?"

Whether PacketCluster is appropriate or not wasn't my decision, but 
since it is allowable, I use the facility. Why I think the telephone 
system isn't appropriate can perhaps be answered by an example:

A well-known Belgian amateur was in the habit of ringing people up he 
had worked on HF to set up skeds for rare multipliers in the CQWW 160m 
Contest. This was how he achieved very high scores and "won" the contest 
several times in the 1990s. It was quite obviously cheating and not 
allowable in the rules.

As a postscript to this little tale. In the CQWW 160m contest, the year 
after ONxxx was "exposed" as a blatant cheat, I believe several very 
loud pirate ONxxx stations using his callsign were QRV simultaneously 
for many hours and effectively blew away his chances of repeating the 
feat.

 >> Things evolve, we have to do likewise. The alternative
 >> is to spend our last days as grumpy old men.

 >And when all else fails, get personal?  In any case, your're only half 
 >right, I'm not old :-)

It wasn't meant as a personal comment to you specifically, but more a 
general observation of some of the comments about CW contesting I read 
on the Reflector by some of our more venerable contributors.

For example, some folks don't like cut numbers in reports like dit, 
dah-dit, dah-dit, or speeded up 599 reports, or "dit dit" instead of 
"TU" to end a QSO or the habit of not sending a callsign at the end of 
every contest QSO.

I'm pretty sure that you've read the complaints on the Reflector from 
some respected, long-established contesters e.g. "not the right 
procedure old chap", "quite wrong", "totally unnecessary", "wasn't done 
in my day", etc.

There are plenty of things I'm personally not mad keen on, especially a 
couple of the practices listed above. However, if that's the way the art 
of contesting is evolving, I'll use that method if it helps improve the 
score. That was the point I was trying to make.

73

-- 
Steve Wilson, G3VMW
Bramham, Wetherby, West Yorkshire