My oh My,

I just had my first introduction to CW contesting during field day. I
sat and watched a CW operator rack up QSO after QSO at 25 wpm and I
was very impressed. Man, I wanted to do that! I left field day
with a renewed interest in CW thinking that I might try and brush off
the dust and cobwebs from my CW skills and give it a try next year.
Going from a copy speed of nearly zero to contest ready is going to be
a serious problem for me but I can try.

Then I see your post... Oh my. My first thought was "Wow! That would
be great on field day to speed up finding stations to work!" I could
even imagine that it would be pretty easy to automate most of the QSO
process and depend on the computer to find, work and log contacts with
little (if any) operator interaction required. This is, of course, at
the heart of the whole debate over this new tool’s use. Is it fair
to
the operator who doesn't have this tool if I use it?

How the CW contesters will deal with this new technology while keeping
the playing field level? Beats me, but thinking about it leads to a
number of possible solutions (Please folks let's add to this list.)
1. Ignore the new technology and live with the fact that folks who use
it will likely increase their contest scores.
2. Regulate its use by handicapping folks who choose to use such
tools.
3. Make the use of such tools illegal for the contest.

Each approach has its good points and it's bad ones.

Ignoring the technology would be a grave mistake. If it is not
addressed, fully automatic stations during contests would become the
rule and the single operator won't stand a chance. Gone would be the
reward for staying up all night practicing those finely honed
operating skills in an attempt to rack up a winning score. The
winners would be asleep in the next room (or the next state for that
matter) for the whole contest. That would be a bad thing for contests
and for the hobby so we simply cannot ignore this.

Banning these tools from contests would also be a mistake. It would
be like banning transistors, or DSP signal processing. We cannot
ignore or discourage new technology and how it can advance the state
of the art of radio. We must push to integrate new things that enhance
our operating capabilities and encourage innovation in one of the few
open areas left where the home brewing is alive and well. These days
most are not going to build a radio to get on the air because it's
very difficult to build a state of the art rig at home. But you can
write some software at home on your desktop with very cheap and
readily available tools.

That leaves a middle of the road approach. I personally think that it
would be best to regulate this technology's use in contests. We need
to preserve the need for personal operating skills and reward those
who work hard. But we need to recognize that melding technology with
your station's operation in a effective ways is hard work too. I
would push for a "regulation by bandwidth" kind of approach. This
would handicap operators who use automatic spotting tools by some
factor that is related to the receiver bandwidth being used. I would
also clearly state in the rules that 100% automatic operation should
not be allowed, but that there must be some operator interaction
required for each QSO that takes place. The bad point to this
approach is it will lead to more complex rules and make it harder to
keep scores straight.

There should be a place for CW Skimmer in contesting and its use
should be encouraged in ways that also encourage the development of
these kinds of tools, and the integration of this kind of innovation
into good operating practice.

-= bob =-


On Jul 7, 7:32 pm, "K�HB" wrote:
 "Skimmer" Software created by Alex Shovkoplyas, VE3NEA, is an inter
esting mix
of "old" and "new".

This new application, which depends on the "new" of SDR (Software Defined
Radio)
and focuses on the "old" of Morse Code is one of those "gee, why didn't I
think
of that" pieces of technology that exemplifies the "tinker and experiment
" heart
of Amateur Radio.

Download a functional demo athttp://www.dxatlas.com/Download.asp
Read a critical review athttp://www.pvrc.org/~n4zr/Articles/Skimmer.pdf
Join an online bbs-style forum athttp://skimmer.createforum.net/index.php
Join an email discussion group athttp://dayton.contesting.com/mailman/lis
tinfo/skimmertalk
--
73, de Hans, K0HB