> 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.
ICOM's contest rules do not prohibit IRLP, Echolink, the use of dstarusers.org, etc., so those aids would seem allowed per the rules. They do prohibit the use of "D-PLUS DV Dongle HotSpot Digital/Analog Gateways DV Adapters", however. Some stations are also logging into gateways using dongles and then soliciting one-touch QSO's, so this really does need clarification. As you know, contests almost invariably state whether "assistance" is allowed or not, and if there are separate entry categories for assisted and unassisted. Assisted means the use of any aid to facilitate QSO's, typically DX/spotting networks of which which dstarusers.org is a form. Thus, the current ICOM DStar contest rules seem to prohibit some but not all forms of assistance. > 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. I've read the rules several times and can't find the part prohibiting multicast. Maybe ICOM will clarify that too. It would be a shame for them to prohibit their own technology, but who knows. BTW, are you actually in the contest or just refereeing? 73 -- John
