N5KO wrote:
<snip>
At this point, people thought things were getting out of hand
(especially the teams that truly had but a single transmitter!), so
the people who make up the rules got even smarter yet and created a
thing called a "10 minute rule" which basically says "once you work a
guy on one band, you have to remain camped on that band for 10 minutes
before you can make a contact on another band." This rule limited the
multi single boys to a maximum of six band changes per hour, negating
the power of the octopus.
<snip>
Au contrair!
In days of OLDE, before there was computer logging, and K5RC
was CAREFULLY checking M/S logs for all manner of discrepancies,
including 10 minute rule violations, the 10 minute rule was interpreted
as a 10 minute WINDOW. (This is how we ran it from N4AR in the 70's
and 80's in the CQ WW DX Contests.)
Say you are running on 15M and the multiplier station makes a contact
on 20 meters. Then you find a multiplier on 10M and work it. The next
band change must be no sooner than 10 minutes after the 20 meter
contact, allowing you to move to 10M, call in the pileup for 9 minutes,
and then move back to 20M after you have absent for 10 minutes,
NOT 10 minutes after you make your FIRST contact on the second band.
As the rule is now interpreted, 10 minutes after making the first contact
on a band, one would have to make that contact immediately upon QSY
in order to achieve 6 band changes per hour. If you spend any time
at all in the pileup, you will be even further handicapped.
(Personally, I think a 5 minute rule would also solve the octupus problem
and impose less of a penalty to M/S entrants compared to S/O who can
band change at will, especially if the rule was applied as in days of
olde.)
"Once upon a time" BC (before computers), rules were writen and
interpreted with "common sense". :-)
de Tom N4KG
--
CQ-Contest on WWW: http://www.contesting.com/_cq-contest/
Administrative requests: cq-contest-REQUEST@contesting.com
|