That sort of revisits a notion that K1TTT raised a few days ago ....
could there be competitive strategies in the arsenal of today's
contesters that would result in them being spotted more often and more
effectively? I think it's a valid concept, and these are some of the
influences I've previously considered (although never explored):
1. Skimmer and most clusters have a timer to avoid repetitive spots, so
changing my run frequency more often probably allows more spots to get
through the system. Whether that offsets the potential losses of doing
so is debatable, although it might during slow periods.
2. Changing frequency might cause someone who thought I was notable
enough to be spotted the first time to spot me again as an update.
3. Sending my callsign more often should potentially result in more
spots since casual spotters are less likely to wait around for someone
to ID.
4. On CW, sending my callsign slowly enough for more people to try to
copy it seems prudent, at least during quiet stretches. The more people
who can figure out who I am, the more of them are likely to spot me.
5. Are people more likely to spot my signal if I am weak or if I am
strong? I'm not sure on this one. Some people may tend to spot weak
stations under the assumption that they are helping others find me.
Other people may tend to spot loud stations under the assumption that I
should be easy to work. Skimmers and the RBN are going to lean toward
the stronger stations, of course.
6. Some of the well-known multi-op stations regularly have their
loggers set to "log all S&P contacts", so a minor point might be to
never call them ... let them call me on their second VFO/radio.
7. Skimmers only spot callsigns that are accompanied by certain
keywords, such as CQ, TEST, etc. If I send TU AB7E at the end of a
contact in a run (as I usually do) I probably won't trigger a Skimmer
reaction. There may be other distinctions that have an influence. For
example, while CQ'ing I wonder if "TEST AB7E" or "AB7E TEST" is more
likely to work.
Of course, if anyone ever gets really good at this there will probably
be those who will claim he is in effect violating the spirit of the
rules.against self spotting. ;)
73,
Dave AB7E
On 7/19/2010 6:13 AM, Steve London wrote:
> A question that I have is...what were R32K, R31X, R36O, R34D, R37P, R39A and
> R39R doing differently that caused them to be infrequently picked up by a
> skimmer ?
>
> On the suggestion of my teammate, N6TV, our CQ was "TEST R39M R39M". All
> characters were sent at the same speed - usually at 36 or 38 WPM. That seems
> to
> have resulted in the 6th highest skimmer capture rate.
>
> 73,
> Steve, N2IC
>
>
>>
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