Re: [wsjt-devel] Someone released an Auto CQ mod - my 2 cents

[Jim B. <k9...@au...>]

On 3/31/2019 9:53 AM, Bill Somerville wrote:
> most Amateur Radio operators would not consider a QSO with a machine to 
> be worthwhile and to find out that they had done so unknowingly would be 
> very annoying.

That depends on what you might be trying to accomplish. I certainly 
would automate my FT8 operation in this manner, but about a year ago I 
made a QSO with a robot KX3 floating from KH6 to the west coast of NA on 
a scientific raft studying oceanography of some sort. That QSO went into 
my log, because my operation was not robotic! And it filled in a very 
rare CQ Field for that award.

Likewise, if I'm trying to add EU countries on 160M, I really don't care 
what is creating and controlling the signal on the other end of the QSO. 
My accomplishment is building RX and TX antennas that will get my signal 
from near San Francisco 6,000 miles over the auroral oval to EU, and dig 
that station's signal out of the noise. When I count that for DXCC, I 
did my part of the work.

OTOH, I do view auto-CQ in any form, attended or not, as cluttering up 
the spectrum. I almost never call CQ using FT8 on any band but 6M, and 
even there do so sparingly. And I'm talking about the auto-repeat CQ 
built into WSJT-X.

73, Jim K9YC