[VHFcontesting] Get A Grip!

[Joel N. Weber II]

> However I was told by the ARRL contest sevtion that it would be considered
> the same as packet assistance during a contest and would be disqualified
> since others could see my location.

Did the person you talked to at the League understand that the APRS
packets would be sent out in a form such that they wouldn't be
digipeated?

I'd always thought that the spirit of that rule was that if station A
claims credit for contacting station B, that there's no station C
involved.  With VHF packet spotting networks chasing HF DX, there's
generally at least a station C and maybe even a station D, station E,
etc.  With APRS digipeaters, it's likely that there's a station C
involved.

The ``or the same frequency as repeaters'' rule seems to me that it
implies that APRS on 144.390 without a request for digipeation is
probably in violation of the rules, since an APRS digipeaters is a
form of repeater.

As a thought experiment, does the League think it's legal to send ``CQ
CQ CQ DE KB1GRS/rover FN42ki 144.210'' as PSK-31 on some arbitrary
agreed on 2 meter frequency?  (There's an argument that PSK-31 or
perhaps some other weak signal mode would probably work better than
the modulation AX.25 uses anyway, although in practice, a system where
D7A with a GPS is sufficient would be nice.)