[Moon] Breaking a vicious circle

[jimmyv at hol.gr]

Hello Giorgio

I think by cancelling Unassisted and Assisted class for ARL EME  
Competition as you propose, you sure help amusement.

It is a pity to see that efforts being put in place by fellow hams in  
developing software for digital stations to operate Unassisted will  
stay on the shelve unused, as well as random operation by those  
working on analog & digital modes to be considered of no value, just  
because amusement and numbers is the only criterion for fun makers.
I am puzzled: is this what EME is all about?

Because if we do follow your wishes, EME Competitions, being the Creme  
de la Creme of all radio amateur contests, with the human touch (to  
use your words) when operated in analog modes, would end up in  
pre/post Contest announcements like the following, for next years:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
''Rob (no callsign required) was QRV in the ARRL contest on the magic  
digital mode.
Category: All bands at the very same time :-)

My setup as follows:
Ant: 4 stacked 10Mbit/sec DSL lines
Preamp / rx setup: 4x72 bits soundblaster Pro sync
Amp: 500 Gb Hitachi harddisk
Computer: Intel dual core 4.0Ghz with 5Gb Ram
Monitor: TFT Radio Amateurs MAP of the World

Number of QSOs: 300 ???
Number of self spots: 200
Logger presence in: 10 loggers(20 spots per logger was the optimum SSP  
ratio  - self spotting presence)

Those that sent RO and did not get R in return we continue from where  
we stopped in next leg, as server problem will be restored.

For next Contest leg see you in ECOTW (EME Chat of the World) for best  
human touch.''
------------------------------------------------------------------------

73,
Jimmy SV1BTR

----- Original Message -----
From:dl5mae at wa7v.ampr.org
To:moon at moonbounce.info
Sent: Wed, 31 Oct 07 04:11:42 -0700
Re: [Moon] IK1UWL

Ciao Giorgio,

Isnt the EME-internet-party during ARRL EME COntest already big enough?

If the developement goes like this the ARRL EME referees may say:


AND THE WINNER IS:

IK1ABC : superfast internet - 500 selfspots in 48 hours - continous
chatting - visitor of 5 different loggers and chat-rooms and 5
MEGA-SUPER PCs!

instead of:

W5XYZ: 64 stacked antennas - 10m dish - low-noise preamps - homebrew
PA - low loss cable and outstanding OP skills by finding and digging out
the callsigns by himself.

vy 73 de dl5mae Wolfgang

----- Original Message -----
From: "Giorgio Marchi" <marchi.g at libero.it>
To: "Moon-net" <moon-net at list-serv.davidv.net>
Sent: Wednesday, October 31, 2007 7:28 AM
Subject: [Moon-net] Breaking a vicious circle

> Hi all,
> the first leg of the ARRL EME Contest 2007 was very agreable, with  
> lots of stations and activity, better than the last ones. With the  
> battle
> over I have tried to analyse the contest and make comparisons  
> between present and past rules.
> I must start thanking the people in ARRL for admitting analog and  
> digital modes in the same contest and admitting, at least partly,  
> the use of "self spotting". At the present moment there is a very  
> limited number of stations capable to visualize the activity on a  
> large bandwidth. This is not only technically complex but also  
> rather expensive, and its main usefulness is in contests, normal  
> activity is conducted agreably and efficiently with the help of  
> loggers, where you can add a lot of information to the basic ones  
> exchanged via EME and get a human touch.
> If everybody had crossed yagis, WSE hardware, one pc with Linux and  
> Linrad and a second pc with MAP65, everybody would be waiting for
> activity, which would be lacking or meagre. No cqs. Admitting self  
> spotting entails more activity which benefits also the top guns who  
> can operate unassisted.
> And self spotting is a great benefit also for small stations. I  
> worked a lot of very small stations thanks to self spotting, which I  
> would probably
> not have detected with S&P, same for them. And the number of  
> stations calling CQ was much bigger with respect to contests which  
> do not
> allow self spotting, this increased very much the number of qsos  
> possible and the number of participants who found satisfaction in  
> operating
> this weekend.
> So I hope that self spotting will return in full in future rules,  
> without separation between assisted and unassisted; amusement and  
> participation
> will benefit from this. And that the very narrowband modes like JT2  
> and JT4 develop into modes comparable in sensitivity to JT65. With  
> these and a single channel MAP65 there would be a poor man's  
> alternative. Please Joe, dont give up !
> 73 to all from Gio IK1UWL