Especially to the pocketbook! Yikes on the prices of the 'big guns'. Just under a dollar a minute! I think I saw one cheap one at 9 cents a minute. Let's see... I generally am in the shack at least an hour a day on weekdays, and sometimes 4 hours on weekends. The cheap station would cost me $5.40 a weekday, and $21.60 a day on the weekends. 20 X 5.40 plus 8 x 21.60 is a $280 car payment!
So what do they do for an example, 20 paid subscriptions and 20 subscribers want to operate say 20 meters from one location at the same time of day? To me it seems useless because best case would be one subscriber each band from a different location, I doubt the isolation is good enough to run more than one per band especially with 1.5kw. Maybe I am totally wet on that, it seems like a real life scenario considering most people are off work on the weekends.
Why does this only work with a K3/0 Mini? Why not include other rigs that are capable of using the rigs control head over the internet for remote operation like a TS-480 etc..?
Read this very special posting and thread to get an appreciation why remote operating is not the devil some think it is. https://forums.qrz.com/index.php?th...hnician-amateur-ham-radio-documentary.560768/ Being older someday this might be me and it is a relief to know that my ham radio can be with me. 73, Sid K3SX
Drone with an infrared camera might be much better since it would send the gps coordinates to a smart phone. .
Personally, I like remoting into the computer that's connected to my radio (elsewhere in my house) and doing digital mode stuff (JT65 mostly) from my tablet while firmly ensconced my big, comfy chair watching The Big Bang Theory. I can also do it from work on my lunch break.
Consider it just another tool in our box. Personally, I've been using my own station as a remote for several years to give me something to listen to while at work. I work 24 hr. shifts. Recently, moving from one remote option to another, I now have my station at the tip of my fingers whenever I want it, fully controlled. So, no matter if I'm at the firehouse for 24hrs, on a long trip or on vacation at the beach, I have VHF/UHF ties to my home location, along with HF. I get the argument of doing it right at the radio. And I have, either in the shack, mobile HF (what a pain this can be), QRP on vacation, I'm willing to try almost anything. The only thing the internet is doing is allowing me to control the shack, and to pass some audio. Maybe it's not real radio to some, and that's fine, but according to some of my elmers, repeaters were once considered not real radio either. As a no code tech, I endured some of the, not real op thing. Looking back, I laugh at the shortsighted hams that limited themselves with low expectations, missing out on a ton of experiences. I've learned the code and love working CW, and I like the hobby so much, I want to use my station, and show it off remotely. It also allows my friends to log in and work my station, not to mention the people that log on and use it to check propagation, or listen to something they can not hear. So, while the negative Nancy's say it's not real radio, I'm making the contact to the DX station everyone wants....lol. The more tools the better. And if we want to get the younger generation involved, we better start accepting some of "their" tools. 73 de W2SFD George
Yes. Currently the DXCC rule is in order for the contact to count towards your DXCC it has to be made withing your DXCC entity. See the link below you're original post from Mr. Remote himself, W2RE
So, if I remote into my home station and contest with it that should be different than if I was physically at the controls?
I don't think so... And you may be a bit off the point. The resistance seems to be focused on the fact that these are pay to play super stations. You built your station yourself.
That's what I'm saying. Contesting by remote control just seems to take the "sport" out of it. Like I said earlier, it's a bit like car racing using remote controls. It's just not the same sport if the driver's hands aren't on the wheel, and if some drivers are "live" and some drivers are "remote," it doesn't seem meaningful to compare the first group with the second. The kind of achievement is very different, the challenges are different, and the level of accomplishment is just qualitatively different. I can see an allowance for remoting to some other part of your house, or remoting from your flat to your vehicle outside, or something like that where you and your radio are at the same general location. But remoting from one town to another, or from a big city to a megastaiton in the middle of the Montana wilderness -- especially a station that the operator didn't build -- that just doesn't seem very sportsmanlike to me. Obviously my opinion doesn't matter to the big contests, because I'm not aware of any that stipulate that the operator must be at the transceiver site, only that the TX and RX antennas must be within some proximity to one another.
Big deal who cares, its not for money. To me it seems like it would be equivalent to placing a piece of ring bologna inside your pants, that only satisfies one person and ends with a big laugh.
