PRESENTER OPINION : The Hobby That Trusts Too Much: Ham Radio's Data Protection Crisis

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PRESENTER OPINION : The Hobby That Trusts Too Much: Ham Radio's Data Protection Crisis

There is a quiet irony at the heart of amateur radio. Ours is a hobby built on the principle of communication — of reaching out across continents, of connecting with strangers in the ether, of broadcasting our presence to the world. We accept, willingly and openly, that our callsigns are public. Our names and addresses are registered with national regulators. Anyone with internet access and a passing curiosity can look us up. That is the deal we sign when we get our licence, and most of us are perfectly comfortable with it.

But there is a world of difference between information that is publicly available and information that is actively handed to someone without our consent. And that distinction — painfully obvious in law, in ethics, and in plain common sense — appears to be one that our national organisations are struggling to grasp.

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PRESENTER OPINION : Contests and award schemes - what is the difference?

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Up until lately, in general terms, these two activities had their boundaries, defined something like this:

AWARD SCHEMES

Have no end date, activators and chasers may join or leave the scheme at any time.

There can be different sections, but an operator works to his or her target level.

Within the scheme itself, there is no "best operator".

Activity can be on any amateur band and on any day of the week.

CONTESTS

Are for a set period of time 4,6,8 hours, 1 day or a weekend(2 days) are common periods.

Any part of the contest more than a 4 hour sprint (which is often on a weekday evening), are at the weekends.

ONLY the ITU-defined contest bands and ideally the areas defined within those bands for contests by the IARU should be used.

There can be sections (for example, based on power), but within each section, the aim is to find the "best operator/station" based on points earned.

Of late, it seems to me that some contest organisers are calling their contests "Awards" in order to be able to operate on the WARC bands every day of the week.

I find this a little worrying as the ITU is the one who defines that the contests take place only on certain bands (often those where Amateur radio is the primary user), and if they perceive that this ruling is being abused, they may take action against amateur radio in general, not the contest/award organisers.

There is a good example of where one organisation covers both a "true" award scheme and also run a contest, which can provide points for the award scheme but is separate from it and only runs on a weekend and not on the WARC bands - that is IOTA.

What do you think? Please add comments in the comments box below.

PRESENTER OPINION: Amateur radio and RVing are great together→

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PRESENTER OPINION: Amateur radio and RVing are great together

Last August, I got an email from Skip, K4EAK. He wrote: I’m a member of an RV club (the Family RV Association) which has an amateur radio chapter. FRVA’s annual convention will be next March in Perry, Georgia, and ARC is going to do a one-day prep session, followed by the Element 2 Tech exam the next morning. We’ll be using your “No Nonsense” guide, encouraging the participants (as you suggest) to read through it several times, take a few practice tests, and then attend the session before taking the exam. We also plan to follow your prep-day schedule and outline of topics.

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