Ban CW Skimmer from Contesting?
A petition is now out on the Internet that requests banning the CW Skimmer program and Related Enhancements for CW contests in any operating category.
The petition says, in part:
We love CW Contesting because it is CW Contesting. CW Contesting is enjoyed by Amateur Radio Operators worldwide who use their skills and stations to compete with other stations and the other stations’ operator(s) skills.
Although certain technological advancements have been developed and generally accepted by the contest community, Skimmer technology is one we feel should be banned from use in CW Contesting in all categories.
Banning new technology for all categories is drastic, to say the least. And requested before there is any real data out on how contesters would use the program in a real contest and describe what would help or hurt them about the program.
I don’t disagree the technology should be available in all contesting categories, but banning the technology from any contesting category flies in the face of human behavior.
Banning the program from use sounds easy, but fails a key contest criteria: there is no reliable metric that tells us whether the program is used by an operator or not. Without the capacity to log check and know, the program will be used, or not, by the operator. Allowing the program in one/some categories would provide the operator a clear category to use the program in the contest.
Instead of petitions recommending banning the program from contesting, I think it would be much smarter to use the program in some contests. Let’s figure out how it changes the operator behavior and then work on putting the technology in the right category for the operator.
Also, KA3DRR’s article on this.
Scot, K9JY
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9 comments
http://ka7u.us/cat.htm
The CW skimmer is not all that new. MixW has the ability to “align” to a signal with a mouse click and with a dual receiver such as the ORION radios you can walk up the band easily. Once a station is marked the call sign will remain on that frequency until you log another there or clear the markers. It is easy to be listening to one station and set the receive cursor on another and let the machine read that track so that you can decide if you want to move up and work that station or not. No way they should try to stop this from CW contests. It makes CW contests fun, like a video game!
KA7U
There is, no doubt, a place for this technology. It’s interesting to me that people would want to ban the technology before we even know how it could be used to help an operator.
Thanks for the comment Ron!
Also for those that stop by, check out Ron’s URL above and it will take you to a screen shot that shows what he is writing about.
[…] this technology will be banned from CW contesting as […]
Scot,
Thanks for your interest! That web page of mine is aging and I should update it one of these days! HI But it does help to explain the “how to” of computer controlled radios and the nifty options of the band scope displayed in coordination with the controlling software. I just love playing with it, but CW is CW and I understand the frustration of the guys that don’t use computers. It would almost seem that computer users and many CW operators are incompatible socially, or something. I have an old Heathkit HW-16 and it is fun but it is not likely I would plan to use it in a contest. The old HW-16 cannot produce the clean CW of a modern Ten Tec rig and it is not really computer compatible. HI
73
KA7U
Banning software, simply unworkable.
One can envision a CW Skimmer Add-In to provide randomization or sequencing and periodic hunt & pounce QSO pop-up reminders to make it more difficult to tell if CW Skimmer was used or not.
It makes more sense to categorize band-pass software assisted entries as either their own new class, or as assisted.
Emotionally on one hand a person finds innovation like CW Skimmer bother abhorrent and attractive at the same time. The ingenuity of the mind is amazing, but then we also pine for the simpler & purer.
Somehow, while so different, both the technologically rich and the traditionally pure both seem good.
73
Steve
K9ZW
About “there is no reliable metric that tells us whether the program is used by an operator or not” - replace “the program” with “Low power”…
It´s not about freezing technology but to preserve a significant human skill-part in a competition of operators which would otherwise more or less completely shrink to a station builder´s competition. But of course YMMV.
73, Chris (DL8MBS)
Chris — I agree with you. Banning the program is no different then including it in an appropriate competition class — you still can’t tell if it is used one way or the other. It is still up to the operator.
Banning, however, begs bad behavior. I think if Skimmer can be included in the categories, for example, assisted, it would allow the technology to flourish and give people a category to contest.
I would also suggest that low power — or QRP — is also about station builders. Having big antennas in the right geography helps both of those categories more than me with my 100 watts and a vertical with half the signal going into the side of a hill!
Thanks for the comment.
Why not ban electronic keyers? At least it can be proven that they are being used. I remember the fun of using a DX40, a pump handle and a bit of wire out of the window. Contests today are really dummed down from the days when skill was the main ingreiant for winning.
73
Gordon G3MZV
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