[CQ-Contest] Here is what's wrong with packet users

[DOUGLAS ZWIEBEL]

Hi all:

Here is what is wrong with some (many, most?) packet users.  Emphasis on
USERS.

I pulled this from a posting by N2BA on cq-contestin.com.  Since it is a
public forum, I hope that N2BA is not upset that I am copying his
submission.

Anyhow, here it is (emphasis added by me):

[snip]
During the ARRL 10 meter contest M/S as W3USA at my shack, I (me personally,
N2BA) inadvertantly spotted myself while trying to figure out how to get
Writelog to communicate band-maps from one rig to another in a 2 radio
set-up. It turns out that Writelog did not support that then, though it does
now. As a test, I used our own call, and when I sent the spot, Writelog
showed W3USA on the other rig's bandmap. (This is because when it was sent
out over packet, it came back to the other station.)

*****Even though I had not actually transmitted on the frequency, people
began calling!*****

 (The VFO was on a random spin of the dial.) Because I did this (Twice
actually, once on each rig...phone/cw) we (the other ops, and I) decided to
not send in our score. We noticed later that many of the top-10 had a few
self-spots listed on DX-Summit's database. Also, I wonder if we should have
submitted our score because our mistake was innocent, it didn't actually
help our score, and others might have done the same thing (We would have
placed about 9th M/S as I recall.) 73... Brooke, N2BA [end ship]

If any of you can't understand why some of us are upset about packet users,
even after reading this, then there is no hope of understanding.

de Doug KR2Q