Interesting question. Off the top of my head, I would have said that sending
spots is legal for Single-Op stations. I'm certain that I'm not alone in
believing that this has been the understanding among contesters for a long
time. In fact, I vaguely recall my contest club encouraging single-ops to
spot the stations they find.
That said, it seems that the wording of CQ rules does not explicitly permit
this practice, and could easily be interpreted to prohibit it. It's a little
more difficult to interpret the meaning of the ARRL rules:
2.1.Single Operator: One person performs all transmitting, receiving, and
logging functions as well as equipment and antenna adjustments.
2.1.1.Use of spotting assistance or nets (operating arrangements
involving other individuals, DX-alerting nets, packet, Internet,
multi-channel decoders such as CW Skimmer, etc) is not permitted.
Clearly, "Use of spotting assistance" refers only to reception of that
information. Unfortunately, the sentence also prohibits "use of nets" and
things like them, and that could be interpreted to mean sending to those
nets.
When the CAC recommended this wording several years ago, there was no
discussion of prohibiting sending spots. All of our discussion was about
reception and use of spots. In my opinion, had the issue come up, I believe
that the CAC would have recommended allowing single-ops to send spots. That
is, however, just my own opinion and not that of ARRL.
73, Dick WC1M
-----Original Message-----
From: kr2q@optimum.net [mailto:kr2q@optimum.net]
Sent: Sunday, October 23, 2011 5:52 PM
To: cq-contest@contesting.com
Subject: [CQ-Contest] Does providing assistance place in the assisted
category?
N7DF asks...
If you provide assistance to another station such as telling him where a
multiplier is on the band but you do not use any such assistance yourself,
do you place yourself in the ASSISTED category?
[snip]
In CQWWDX, Rule 12A, we note that:
Call sign alerting assistance of any kind places the entrant in one of the
Single Operator Assisted categories.
[end snip]
I do not see anything about directionality (providing versus receiving), so
to my simple mind, the answer to your question is YES...the "sender" is
assisted.
Anyhow, if you know someone is "unassisted," why would you jeopardize their
status by sending them such information? Maybe in an attempt to sabotage
their operation?
Nahhhh...couldn't be.
de Doug KR2Q
Final Disclaimer: The above comments are MY OWN and should never be
construed as being representative of the opinions of any contest committee
with which I may be associated.
Very TIC
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