[CQ-Contest] Packet Pileups -> Breaking Pileups

[kl7ra]

Yuri writes:

>    Another argument for turning the packet off for contests?

You and others have given a lot of good arguments for turning
off packet on contest weekends, the best being spot chasers
that refuse to claim assisted. "Yeah, I was linked to the cluster
all contest, but I was (watching) propagation flow", what a load
of snow.  However, Dxers and contesters are not always the 
same. It's rather arrogant to ask a cluster host to cut the flow
during the WW when all month DXers were chasing DX and 
having fun. 

During WW phone 99  I didn't run spots to the network until Sunday
morning. This year we had spots flowing for the full 48 hours and
like it or not, our country totals jumped up by 20+ on each band. In
one case where we usually  have 125 countries or so we had 160!! 

The reason is simple and it's time. Popping Happy faces (band map
shows a happy face for a new mult which turns off after being worked,
come on--you gotta love it) is speeded up by at least ten times which 
allows more end to end sweeps of the band and a lot more time with
the pile-ups.

Like most things in this hobby packet clusters are good and bad. I do
agree with Yuri, Dave and others and would vote to halt them during
the WW, (mostly to stop cheaters) but that's not going to happen as 
we represent a pretty small fraction of those folks that us them daily.

73 Rich  KL7RA   


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