[CQ-Contest] Scourges of Contesting, Chapter Two

[Bruce Sawyer]

Consider:

It's Sunday afternoon and I have put maybe 3 hours into the contest all
weekend, so I'm there but I'm not at all serious.  However, I am curious how
people are doing so I log on and check the current race results.  Lo and
behold, N5TJ and N6TJ are neck and neck, way out in front of the rest of the
pack.  Now Jeff is a great guy and he always helps me out when I'm trying
seriously.  N6TJ, on the other hand, is so cheap that he wouldn't even buy
me a beer at Dayton last year.  So guess what...I go hunt down N5TJ and give
him all the points I can, but ignore that other cheapskate.

This idea of having real-time displays of contest results is different in
one very significant way from what was done at WRTC in OH.  In that case,
there wasn't enough information available to enable people to jump in to aid
their friends.  Here there is, and that makes all the difference.  This idea
would be one more big step in turning contesting into a popularity contest.

That is also one of my biggest objections to the use of packet spotting nets
during contests.  They tend to turn it into a popularity game.  The guy with
the most spots wins, right?  And it doesn't really matter where he gets the
spots, as long as they keep coming all weekend and can pull in the traffic.
That's NOT how the game is supposed to be played, IMHO.

Bruce, N6NT/ZF2NT