Has amateur radio lost the plot?

An interesting article from EI7GL about non-QSO QSL cards recently and, in particular, the following comment to it by another person, stopped to make me think:

The final sentence is the important one.  A contest seems like a decent enough idea.  Yet, precisely because they are competitive, they always lead to cheating, whether that is deliberate by some complex arrangement with other hams, or simply by using, as the comment says, a remote station.

It was exactly the use of remote stations - in this case, multiple remote stations - that led me to drop the idea of taking part in contests after my only attempt to do so in the 2019 RDRC JT9 activity day.  Even though that is not a contest in the very earnest manner of some competitions, it was still important enough to some that they resorted to using expensive access to an enormous array of Yagis across the world, tot up the points and coast to victory.  

Remote stations don't even need to be complex or expensive.  They just need to be within easier reach of that once-in-a-lifetime DX.  Today, there are loads of them around the world, just basic rigs, hooked up to the internet, that anyone can access. 

What point is there in me, or much of anyone else, sitting there for 48 hours, diligently working away with a wire antenna and semi-QRP power from one location?  Answer: none at all.

Being 'on top', 'the biggest', 'the loudest' is all part of the ham radio lexicon.  It's hardly surprising that, when a contest effectively asks: 'who's best?', some will run to use whatever method they can, fair or otherwise, to answer: 'me!'  

Anybody can win, if you pay dearly to access antennas and locations like this.  Image: remotehamradio.com

I suppose the majority of operators take part honestly, in the naive expectation that all is fair, with that fairness ensured by the often rather complex rules that apply.  But we only need one cheat - and there are certainly more of those around than we might expect - to spoil the game for everyone.

I don't follow the contesting world at all, but I do of course notice news about them in the magazines and online.  In this month's Practical Wireless, even avid contesters are now describing the number and timing of radio contests as "completely out of control".  I agree.  

Radio has long ago been hijacked on both sides of the Atlantic by over-competitive men whose entire life is dominated by being 'number 1'. They somehow get themselves elected to positions in national societies, where they set about manipulating how the hobby develops and is portrayed. Sadly, the hobby's whole purpose, if you believe these people and their many followers, becomes one of nothing more than contesting.

So, I'm glad I tried one contest in a serious fashion last year.  It confirmed to me what I already knew: it's a total waste of time, if only because radio is a hobby, not a measure of any worthwhile achievement that the rest of the world values and recognises.