[UK-CONTEST] NFD rules

[Andrew]

On 13/06/11 18:53, Paul O'Kane wrote:
> On 13/06/2011 23:25, Andrew wrote:
>
>> <devils advocate>
>
>> That doesn't really clarify the situation.... where do you define the
>> bottom of the mountain so you know if you've started half way up?
>
> It might help to address the core of the argument,
> rather than try to pick holes in what could be an
> imperfect analogy - out of the three offered.

Not picking holes at all, just showing that many people view things in 
many different ways so your definition may not agree with my definition 
and both of us may not agree with the definition of yet another person.

> I have not found a standard definition for
> "climbing a mountain" (and I have looked),
> but I expect we all accept that if you take
> a helicopter half way up, from any agreed or
> recognised starting point, then you have not
> climbed the mountain.

Who defines the agreed starting point?  The British Mountaineering 
Council, some local climbing club, the person doing the climb, you, me? 
  Let's take a less extreme example than Mauna Kea and one you may be 
more familiar with.... Slieve Donard in Co Down.  Where is the agreed 
starting point to climb that?  Down on the beach at Newcastle or the car 
park a couple of hundred feet ASL up in Tollymore Forest where you drive 
to?  I know people who have climbed it from both starting points and 
each time they have considered themselves to have climbed Slieve Donard, 
even though both points have a couple of hundred feet difference in 
total height climbed.  It is a grey area, just like the NFD rules you 
are arguing against.

> Back to the core of the argument.  I maintain
> that if you use the internet to find, facilitate,
> enable or make NFD QSOs then, whatever you claim
> to be doing, it's actually something other than
> amateur radio.

Does the internet make the QSO for you too or did you use RF to make the 
contact?  If you make the QSO over amateur radio, then it's amateur 
radio, irrespective of how you found the station.

Besides, it's not just the internet you complain about.... you also 
complain about skimmer, even a local one that doesn't use an internet 
connection at all.  If you don't like computers decoding CW (should 
standalone CW readers be banned too?), maybe all computer logging 
programs, including SD should be banned from NFD because it merely uses 
technology and let me remind you, 'This phrase "merely uses technology" 
amazes me - with its implication that technology is always good or 
appropriate.'  Do you remember who said that?  Where do we draw the 
line?  Why is it OK to have computer loggers and computer based CW 
sending but not computer based CW decoders?  Who draws that line in the 
sand?

Who, other than the contest organisers, has the right to say which 
technologies can be used in their contest?  If you don't like the rules, 
don't enter the contest.  That's why I don't enter the Russian DX 
contest because I disagree with being penalised for the other guy making 
an error!

Vy 73,

Andrew AC6WI / GI0NWG