At 04:43 AM 7/30/2009, you wrote: >Rule: "The use of the following technologies cannot be used for >contest QSO. D-PLUS DV Dongle HotSpot Digital/Analog Gateways DV Adapters" > >A station jumped me on a reflector asking me to one-touch him back >for a contest QSO. Was the reflector (i.e., dplus) used to make the >QSO? I would argue yes because there is no way otherwise that a >contest QSO could have occured at that time on that frequency (it >did not, btw). An operator making QSO's this way rather than by >random calling has a significant advantage. ICOM, next year please >clarify if this rule means no use of those technologies in any way, >or if it's okay to solicit a QSO just so long as callsign routing >(one-touch reply) is then used to actually complete the QSO.
A lot of contests do allow QSOs to be arranged by repeaters or other means that are invalid for actual contacts. As long as the actual QSO was conducted within the rules of the contest. What if the station called you on IRLP or Echolink and said "Do you have D-STAR?" "yes I do" "I'm chasing contacts in the D-STAR contest Route to me at...". In any case, a bit of clarification would sort this one out. I'm a bit more concerned about the use of multicast to make CQ calls, because multicast is an administrator configured feature, which means gateway admins and those who are close to gateway admins have an unfair advantage in this sort of contest. Not what I would call a level playing field. Clever use of multicast? Definitely! Fair? I don't think so, since it's not equally available to all contestants. 73 de VK3JED / VK3IRL http://vkradio.com
