[ADXA] By Cezar, VE3LYC, Deputy General Manager and Operations Manager (IOTA)

[Jay Bromley]

Hi San,

Good to see you at the OWS meeting last Saturday!

 

I read the whole article and still don’t really don’t know what the fuss is about?  On Contest and DX stations they might have the equipment to do this multiple stream/bands as they have separate antennas and bandpass filters, stubs, etc.  For nearly 99.9% of digital ops from their modest home stations this is never going to happen.  Even though there are some that proved you could automate their stations on one band, these guys are very few among us digital ops.  The software is not free or easy to set up.  Even the ones that are doing automation, I seriously doubt they are running multiple bands or streams.  Setting up multiple instances of the software on one computer for me is a nightmare.  

 

>From as far as I can remember and even before my time in the hobby, there has always been folks crying foul about technology, going from spark to CW, AM to SSB, using packet DX clusters, RBNs and S02R on contests.  Now look at DXClusters, RBNs, and SO2R, they are now the norm in amateur radio and contesting.  Technology I believe is just going to move on, not regress.

 

When I am running stations only on FT8 I will look up the stations bios on QRZ.com via JTAlert.  That is easy to do with one mouse click.  I enjoy reading the bios while working stations and most have pictures of their stations.  I rarely see any station that has the ability to do what that article is talking about.  To make it workable one would have to have a separate rig/amp/antenna, bandpass filters on each band.  Expeditions have this kind of gear, but top expeditions have also have many ops.  

 

F/H is very hard on equipment when you use several streams on one band.  Now I only see two to three streams at the most in F/H.  They at one time had the ability to do 5 streams I think, but most solid state amps had a hard time dealing with that many streams.  Amateur gear for the most part is ICAS, not CCS.  Except for SDR rigs like the Flex, not sure one could do multiple bands at the same time without separates.  On the Flex you could receive multiple bands without too much trouble and then go back to the station of interests much like SO2R.

 

Speaking of SO2R, many RTTY stations can and do more than one band for hours on end with little breaks except for what the rules say to use for break periods.  So I am not sure what the IOTA group was seeing and really probably shouldn’t be commenting as I don’t know all the facts.  Like they even said, do not read too much into their decision!

 

I think Dave Norris said a few months back, there are already rules in DXCC for no automated stations.  I think the DXCC has pretty good Integrity including the digital modes!

 

IMHO like I told Dave, I don’t think this is not much of a problem except for some loving to jack folks up that don’t use these digital modes that are mostly CW and SSB ops.  We all hear stories of folks saying they went to going to bed and got up the next morning discovered they worked DXCC on a band overnight.  My own opinion is that is pure BS and fake news for 99.9% of the digital ops out there.  I am sure the next story will be they worked 5BDXCC overnight soon.

 

Maybe I am just plain stupid or didn’t understand the article, but I don’t see the ARRL doing anything unless there is one op, working for days on several bands without a rest.  Most DX Expeditions have several ops and I don’t see them doing anything automated, but I could be wrong.  Myself I would love to see actual proof of someone breaking the rules.  The money spent on these top expeditions I doubt they are going to risk being disqualified breaking the rules.  

 

We all know there has always been some pushing the boundaries, but that only affects them.  For me I am proud doing it the right way.  Some really good contesters could do a couple of days without sleep and easily do multiple radios, but beyond that I am agree that would have to be looked at by any group doing the awards.  However the folks making these decisions IMHO need to be active on the mode to really know what they are talking about.  You can read all you want on the subject and not get the full picture on what is happening or going on.  

 

Like for 30 years I thought I knew all about DXing and thought it was lame part of the hobby!  One day K5UR told me I would never know what the fuss was about until I got involved.  He was right, I didn’t know squat about DXing and some would say I still don’t, hi.  

 

One last irony in all this, some folks think the new FT modes are too hard to learn, but at the same time we are talking about how easy it is for the technology masses to cheat.  Again I don’t think so or we have many within our ranks cheating.  I think what folks should do is get on the mode, learn it and then see for yourself.  While I think modes like FT modes are great, they have their own learning curve just like SSB and CW.  

 

The bottom line if you don’t have the eyes on the screen you will lose an ATNO!  The time I spent writing this I could have been on 10/12m working some new countries, hi.  

 

73 de w5jay/jay..

 

  

 

 

 

From: adxa-bounces at mailman.qth.net <adxa-bounces at mailman.qth.net> On Behalf Of Sandy Hutson
Sent: Sunday, October 24, 2021 9:43 PM
To: adxa at mailman.qth.net
Subject: [ADXA] By Cezar, VE3LYC, Deputy General Manager and Operations Manager (IOTA)

 

The below is from the comments coming from VE3LYC, Deputy GM and Operations Manager for IOTA. Read it. He brings up a valid concern for some of the advancing technical digital modes and potential operational habits. . . . 

 Quite a few of you asked about the above rule. The IOTA Team is aware that technology is now available to allow an operator to manage multiple streams of digital data which helps him to make contacts simultaneously on multiple bands. This raises a number of questions for award management teams. One of these is for how long can a solo operator do this continuously without leaving the equipment making contacts? What is the length of time that someone can operate nonstop in this way, without taking even a tiny bit of a break for sleep? Is it 48 hours, 60 hours, 72 hours, 84 hours, 96 hours, or more? Rule C.3.10 needs to be read with this in mind.

 

Food for thought for all ham operators, especially those advancing in the new digital mode operational techniques, including chasing QSOs for band modes, etc…  The ARRL might place restrictions on this type of operation techniques for their DX awards.. Anyway, good article by Cezar in the DXWorld.net web….

San YY

 

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