[Moon-net] ARRL Results

[Doug McArthur]

Dear YL and OM's  (I have waited years to say that!)

I am absolutely devastated to learn that I have been stripped of my 
Single-Op Multi-Band 50-1296 MHz Mixed Mode Crown.
I will now have to settle for a blow up replica of the QST Result 
Page displayed on the EME Shack wall to remind me of what could have been.

The ARRL EME Contest was so simple in the past with a single mode 
category without the 144 categories that have evolved since Prague.

It is said that 'you cannot make a silk purse out of a sows ear' and 
similarly to integrate the 144 possible mixed mode and operator 
clarification entry
combinations shows the absurdity of the current ARRL EME Contest 
contrived Rules. Rules that were concocted to allow participation of a mode
that requires, or benefits from readily available assistance other 
than information passed over the RF path. Who in their right mind 
would want to be on the
Contest Committee tabulating the results? .. an impossible task as we 
all have witnessed.

And out of all the 144 possible entry combinations I still cannot 
submit an entry for each band as well as a multiple band entry!

I for one, resent being defined as "Analog" operator that has to 
declare that I operated "unassisted".
I am a CW operator that operates in the time honored traditional 
Amateur manner.

So in my view you have few choices if the ARRL Contest is to continue 
in its traditional and previously highly respected form.
Separate  CW/SSB  from the other communication mode. (we have said it 
so many times before, but personal egos continue to negate commonsense)

No Mixed Mode .. No assisted CW (nobody I know ever wanted it as it 
was just an insult anyway) and make any rules you
like for assisted/unassisted WSJT as you wish (It happens now and it 
is not policed .. how can you .. nor acted upon)

In other words .. give us back our CW EME Contest.  Run a separate 
Digital Contest.

Get rid of the Mixed Mode assisted/unassisted folly ... or  the CW 
entries this year may surely be diminished .
Who would now want to enter a Contest that is now clouded in such 
controversy? Many prominent EME operators have already voted with 
their feet and
declined to post entries. The ARRL EME Contest reputation has sadly 
been tarnished since mixed modes were introduced.

73 Doug VK3UM