I'm sympathetic to this issue and I found the per-game exhortations from
UA9BA to be distasteful, but I don't think that it is practical or even
desirable to try to filter WRTC spots.
a. I could easily get around any filter if I wanted to spot a
particular WRTC station. Instead of R31A, I simply spot WR31A or
something like that. The possibilities are endless and everyone would
know who I meant.
b. Lots of casual contesters enjoy chasing WRTC stations, either for
the certificate or local bragging rights, and the rules allow them to do
so if they submit in the M/S category (or don't submit at all). Why
remove that capability for those casual participants while reducing the
available contacts for the WRTC teams as well?
c. As K1TTT points out, the various cluster networks are extensive,
impossibly intertwined, run on different software, and are each managed
by a different sysop (some of whom are no doubt totally unsympathetic to
leveling the field for WRTC teams anyway). All it would take is one of
them to go rogue and then we would have a truly non-level playing field
because a smaller cluster network would be even less likely to capture
all 50 teams equally.
If a solution to this is needed for the future, I would lean toward the
idea of having the organizers automatically spot all WRTC teams at some
fixed interval. Doing so every fifteen minutes would generate enough
spots to pretty much swamp out any disparity in the number of spots from
other contesters, as well as capture the majority of propagation shifts.
And yes, being the recipient of spots has it's downside, but I think the
number of contesters who would prefer not to be spotted at all is very,
very small.
73,
Dave AB7E
On 7/15/2010 7:39 AM, Kelly Taylor wrote:
> Paul's right: giving everybody fair playing conditions isn't the same as
> rendering everyone equal.
>
> Is it not possible, just thinking out loud here, to request the DX Cluster
> operators to kindly employ WRTC filters for the course of IARU?
>
> WRTC organizers could supply the clustermeisters a list of all callsigns (we
> still wouldn't be disclosing who has which callsign in advance, since it's
> all the callsigns in one group) in advance and request that all spots for
> any of those calls be blocked. I'm sure it can't be overly complicated, but
> if a clustermeister wants to set me straight on that, please do.
>
> Indeed, I think a 'do not spot' registry would be a wonderful thing for some
> operators who AREN'T WRTC ops. I know first-hand and have heard from others
> to corroborate, that sometimes, being spotted is NOT a good thing. Spotting
> can easily drive a frequency to saturation, at which point that frequency
> becomes unusable. In addition to the good operators, DXCluster drives a lot
> of lids to a frequency, who then proceed to call without regard for whether
> the spottee is transmitting or whether the spottee can even be heard.
>
> If I was going on a contest-pedition, I would probably pay US$100 for the
> privilege of being unspottable. Particularly if I was at a station loud
> enough to generate its own pileups without the assistance of DXCluster. Such
> as the amazing station at 6y1v.
>
> 73, kelly
> ve4xt
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