[CQ-Contest] Spotting

[Bill Coleman]

On 3/20/02 9:48 AM, w5gn from earth to swbell at w5gn at mxg.com wrote:

>I don't understand this "fear about flooding the
>spotting network" - if you are S&P'ing to generate
>spots, and working them, 60 an hour is hot and
>insignificant in volume, I would think.

If 1000 people S & P at 60/hr, that's 60,000 spots/hr -- many of them 
likely redundant. I've seen lots of redundant spots. I think a few of 
them are people trying to announce who they've managed to work.

>Do you run a node, and if so, is volume a problem?

I do not run a node. However, volume can be a problem, especially during 
a contest.

>And if you filter out your 15:30 spot, because
>you spotted that station at 15:00, then I'll
>never see that station if I come to that band at 
>15:31 because of your posting filter.

Possibly. There's always the case that you "just missed" an important 
spot. The only solution there is to crank up your spotting connection 
before the contest and leave it up. 

The fundamental problem is that there's no replication of spots -- if you 
aren't connected when the spot goes out, you miss it. (Unless your node 
has a memory, and then you are limited to the depth of that memory)

There are programmatic solutions to this sort of problem, but it would 
require some changes in the nature and formatting of the spots -- not 
likely to happen.



Bill Coleman, AA4LR, PP-ASEL        Mail: aa4lr at arrl.net
Quote: "Not within a thousand years will man ever fly!"
            -- Wilbur Wright, 1901