Those who favor a ban on spotting are typically (but not always) SERIOUS
contesters.
The problem it at least two-fold.
1. How would this be enforced by the sponsor? They cannot FORCE the clusters
to shut
down during the contest.
2. The vast majority of those participating in the contest are NOT serious
contesters. In fact,
many are serious DXers, at various stages of their DX career. While I have
always been, and
continue to be, a strong proponent of LEARNING TO TUNE THE BAND, many (most?)
have come
to rely on packet/DX Cluster spots. It would be like telling a student today
that they can only
use a paper-based library to do their research. Don't make me laugh. Or like
telling any of "us"
serious guys that we can't use computer logging.
And don't get me started on SCP! :-)
Why would a contest sponsor ban a technology that (for many/most) encourages
activity?
Personally, I HATE the DX Cluster and wish it were never created. Equally, I
HATE skimmer
technology. But it doesn't matter...I can not do anything about it.
Contest sponsors can, to a limited degree, monitor self-spotting (and hidden
self-spotting).
Asking your friends, club members, citizens of your home country to "spot me
often" is, to me,
distasteful and technically, banned in at least some contests. But a "grass
roots" effort? How
does a sponsor prevent that? How does one detect a "pre-contest arrangement"
from a DX
guy falling "vicitm" to well-intentioned "friends."
So in terms of contesting, SPOTTING is a double-edge sword. Serious guys can
find lot of
fault with it (on many levels). But equally, without it, we would likely have
less participants
who get on to work some new ones (whether an all time new one or just a new
band-country).
Nothing above is new. If I look hard enough, I'll probably find this nearly
exact quote from a
year or 2 or 10 ago....probably even from me!
de Doug KR2Q
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