On the Question of Automation.

My blogging colleague, EI7GL, recently posted a fine script on his views concerning the ARRL trying to stamp-out automated QSOs in contesting.  You can read pages and pages of opinion, mostly against the decision, here.

You can find my initial thoughts about that under 'comments' in John's blog.

But this did prompt a lot of further thought, which I'd like to set out in what I hope is a balanced and objective way.

First, there is the concept of 'technology', and the concept of 'automation'.

A human can't make any radio communication without technology, for radio is beyond our natural senses and a means of communication that is therefore only possible by constructing a technological apparatus.  He or she can make communication without a machine doing it all on its own, having only once been set going.

So the argument is fully centred on the concept of automation alone.

What, then , is wrong with automation?  Does it allow any given radio station to do something that it would not otherwise be able to do?  Does a human affect it's performance?

Having just emerged from 44 hours out of 48 hours available for a JT9 contest, I can definitively say that the only thing that insisting on human-initiated QSOs achieves is turning what should be a test of a station's overall efficiency in getting a signal from one place to another into a test of human endurance.

 Is that what a radio contest is fundamentally about?  I absolutely think not.

Now, it's a well-known and regrettable fact that the radio community is heavily skewed towards the end of life's progression.  People get old, they might get more easily tired, and they might not last the course.

If they - and I - could simply optimise our stations so that they are working as best we can muster and set them going under automation, then what actually is the mischief in that?  It seems to me that the only logical answer is: 'none at all'.

The ARRL seems to be doing what humans, especially those of a certain age profile, tend to do in all walks of life: engage in nostalgia. Nostalgia, of course, tends strongly to focus on the good things, ignoring the bad and keeping us rooted in a place that has long past.  Facts don't really matter when it comes to nostalgia.  It's just what makes you feel good.

And that is the dangerous place the ARRL seems intent on going.  It is ignoring the plain and simple fact that a radio and its antenna can't be induced into miraculously making QSOs that only the presence of a human could allow it to do.

In the end,cheating in a radio contest - the mischief that the ARRL seems to be incoherently concerned about - isn't difficult, nor is it limited in the ways we can do it.  We might agree with a distant operator of the same cheating mind to log a QSO that never happened.  Some contests don't need a two-way confirmed log - making cheating easy if that's what you want to do.  A QRP station can switch to 1kW operation.

But automation?  Where is the realistic opportunity, over and above the foregoing, for cheating there? 

Digital radio is extremely popular, no matter what you personally think of it.  I fully accept the argument that digital is impersonal, given to simply 'points gathering', and in many ways, utterly mindless.

But digital is also revolutionary.  It allows the majority of operators, who can't erect big antennas - or even particularly efficient ones - to 'work the world' with relative ease, quickly, and during periods of the solar cycle that previously led to quiet bands.  It involves the engagement of computing technology and communication styles that are, as my young MW6 daughter will tell you, much more attractive to that generation than talking about a hip operation with a 75-year old who can do little more than complain and talk about valves!

The world moves on.  The ARRL should accept it probably has too many old, white, middle-class American men trying to cling to the past and reject the future.  It's what all committee-like structures tend to do, whether it's a fishing club or a radio society.

In the end, if humans really do find digital radio too dull, unrewarding or otherwise not worth bothering with, they will do something else.  They might return to SSB and a chat.  It's a lovely thing to do, much more rewarding, in terms of how your day goes, than sending a warble via a PC.  But it's slow.  It's noisy if everyone else wants to watch TV or sleep.  It's not what everyone wants.

And there is a distinction to be made, of course, between one digital mode and another.

FT8 and the like are particularly mindless and impersonal.  But try OLIVIA, Hell, CONTESTIA, ROS and the like, and you find yourself essentially writing enjoyable real-time messages between the operator on the other end.

Sadly, because the western mind dominates in radio culture, 99.99999% of operators vote with their feet, reject these enjoyable 'ragchew' modes, and go collect as many DX and points as they can with the mindless modes.  In the end, people get what the people want.

The ARRL must be careful not to be as hypocritical as, it has always seemed to me, the Amish community of its parent country.  The Amish reject modern technology, without ever defining a cut-off point for 'modern', and accepting some technologies (e.g. carts, machined wood, tools) without ever explaining why those are perfectly fine.  In other words, the Amish base their culture on nostalgia for the past, 'the way things were'.

Let's not be so lacking in objectivity, but embrace the future, see what it brings, use what suits and throw out what we don't.