Ev, you may need to rethink what you are saying. I just remembered that
spotting nets are not legal for the contests. At one time a club I belonged
to had set up a 'contest net' during the contest, late Saturday and Sunday
evening. The idea was that we would all meet on 144.125 SSB and anyone who
had not yet worked each other would do so then. If we had not worked on
other bands we would take care of it at the same time.
Eventually we were told what we were doing was verboten because it was a
'spotting net'. We stopped the practice. It was not a big enough club to
ever win anything anyway so the issue never became serious.
Other clubs handle the issue by having an 'activity hour' for each band.
Instead of meeting on a single frequency they meet on a band, and work each
other 'free for all' style. The difference is a) no formal net, and b) no
single frequency to meet on.
I think that BeaconNet is similar enough in concept to our contest net.
Probably the net aspect of the operation is the basis for them to disqualify
it, not the fact that it is or isn't packet or is or isn't repeated.
73, Russ K2TXB
> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-vhf@w6yx.stanford.edu [mailto:owner-vhf@w6yx.stanford.edu]On
> Behalf Of Ev Tupis (W2EV)
> Sent: Friday, January 17, 2003 10:04 PM
> To: Henderson, Dan N1ND
> Cc: cq-contest; VHF Contesting.com; VHF List;
> RVHFG_general@yahoogroups.com; uWave eMail Remailer
> Subject: Re: Statement regarding the use of BEACONet in ARRL VHF
> Contests
>
>
> No one at the ARRL knows how BEACONet-for-Rovers works. As a
> result, such a
> decision or statement about it's use during VHF Contests is, at best, ill
> conceived.
>
> How do I know that no one knows enough to pass judgment? Because
> I invented
> BEACONet-for-Rovers and no one at the ARRL has ever approached me
> about how it
> is configured or how it works (even the BEACONet web site doesn't have any
> information on it yet!).
>
> It is not spotting or self-spotting in nature. No matter how
> often you say it
> Dan, the facts don't change...it is not. Interestingly, until the term
> "spotting" can be defined (it isn't defined anywhere I can find, btw), it
> appears that one can define it any way they want to and no one can say
> differently. Foul!
>
> > However, so there is no misunderstanding: the use of BEACONet to solicit
> > contacts during the contest period may make your entry subject
> to action by
> > the ARRL Awards Committee.
>
> To be fair, so that there is no misunderstanding: If BEACONet-for-Rovers
> operation DQ's a contestant's entry, then so will simply picking up your
> microphone and saying, "CQ Contest, this is N1ND in FN31nm".
> That is all that
> BEACONet-for-Rovers does...it just happens to use simplex AX.25
> rather than
> simplex SSB....yet this is a strategy commonly used when
> soliciting contacts on
> SSB.
>
> So...
> o What is the definition of "spotting"?
> o Who is on this "Awards Committee" and how do I contact them on
> this matter?
>
> It's time to give them accurate information and put this to bed
> -- either way it
> ends up.
>
> Thanks and 73,
> Evhen Tupis, W2EV
>
> PS. Please Reply-all, Dan...at least on the definition of
> "spotting", would
> you?
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