[CQ-Contest] Improper packet spotting?

[David Robbins K1TTT]

> > What's wrong with spotting members of your own club, by the way.
> That's
> > been done by all of the big clubs for years.
> 
> A competitive station spots itself during a contest.  The objective is
to
> attract users of the DX spotting network to call this competitive
station
> and provide it with more QSOs, possibly more multipliers, and thereby
> increase its score, beyond what it would be able to acheive with just
its
> own radio station and operating skills.  This is unsportsmanlike and
> banned
> in basically every radiosport contest.
> 
> Several members of a competitive club entering the club competition of
a
> contest spot their fellow club members during the contest.  The
objective
> is to attract users of the DX spotting network to call these club
members
> and provide them with more QSOs, possibly more multipliers, and
thereby
> increase the overall club score, beyond what the club would be able to
> achieve with just their own radio stations and operating skills.  In
my
> opinion, this is unsportsmanlike, and I think clubs that are clearly
> engaging
> in this sort of behaviour are basically cheating.
>

ah, but you forgot one important thing.  The spotting network we have
today started out as many different club networks that were designed by
clubs to help their aggregate scores.  While it is nice that it helps
individual stations, it was originally a group effort designed to help
the group score and enhance the club experience.  Today anyone can throw
up a node anywhere and serve the world so some of that club orientation
has been lost, but without that original purpose we wouldn't have the
capabilities we have today.  So if club members can help each other by
spotting each other that is just a logical extension of why the network
was started.


David Robbins K1TTT
e-mail: mailto:k1ttt at arrl.net
web: http://www.k1ttt.net
AR-Cluster node: 145.69MHz or telnet://dxc.k1ttt.net