[CQ-Contest] No spotting?

[Kelly Taylor]

Hi,

Just curious: doesn't the no-spotting argument overlook one simple fact:
contests are of interest to more than just contesters, but to casual ops who
are either looking to increase awards totals, just like to play and those
who like DX for the sake of working DX?

It seems that spotting speaks to those people as much or more than it does
to us, and yet are these folk not vital to our contests? I mean, how fun
would it be if nobody other than the Top 400 in WW ever turned on their
radios? Depending on prop, you might only work half of those, and then for
the remaining 47.5 hours, who do you work?

If nobody's allowed to spot, that almost shuts down the world-wide spotting
system and it seems to me that non-contesters might be a little pi**ed at us
contesters for ruining their fun because we can't come up with a better
solution than shutting it down...

Doesn't sound like a formula for long-term success to me, even if I might
otherwise have no problem with a no-spot rule.

The bands don't belong to the contest, they belong to everybody.
Unilaterally imposing our own set of rules seems counterproductive. Perhaps
the solution is this: no distinction. It seems to me that any unfairness in
that (some people might have access while others don't) isn't any greater
than the inherent unfairness in propagation (some people have access to
Europe on 75 and some don't), the inherent unfairness in antenna system
differences or the inherent unfairness in running a brand new Acom vs. a
clunker SB200...

It's not something that would keep me up at night.

73, kelly
ve4xt