[CQ-Contest] cqww ssb spotting report

[Mike Fatchett]

I have to disagree.  Spotting helps.  I was just playing around in the WW
test and it was fun just to click on spots and go work people.  Would I have
worked them anyway? Maybe.  Many of the Carib stations were jumping between
10, 15 and 20 so it was nice having them spotted.

I just ran SS CW this weekend as a peanut whistle station and I can tell you
that when I got spotted my rates increased.

In WW I spotted stations that did not show up on my bandmap.  If the station
was already there I figured the spot was not that old.  

As for the scenario of Single Op with a buddy watching his dial is not
necessary.  The Single op can log in with a bogus call over the internet and
post his own changes.  I am sure there are plenty of ways to spoof the ip
address if one really wanted to.  Secondly if you drag me down to  a
Caribbean Island for a contest you can bet I will be operating!

Cheating in contests has been going long before I was a ham.  The ways to
cheat just change.

Dave, thanks for your work in trying to focus on the anomalies seen in the
contests via the clusters.

Mike
W0MU 

-----Original Message-----
From: cq-contest-bounces at contesting.com
[mailto:cq-contest-bounces at contesting.com] On Behalf Of Simon Brown, HB9DRV
Sent: Monday, November 08, 2004 9:57 AM
To: cq-contest at contesting.com
Subject: Re: [CQ-Contest] cqww ssb spotting report

As a person who turns up to give away points and also maybe work some DX I
must say that the DX Clusters aren't really that useful as I have a weak
signal at the moment (the 10kW amplifier and 5 element beam for 80m are
still just a dream).

Although I have good access to a DX Cluster I didn't work a single station
as a result, rather by persistence and hearing rare stations calling CQ all
alone on 10m. Where the DX Cluster did help was trying to find the callsign
of the station buried under a huge pileup of assorted Europeans. By the time
a station has been spotted it's too later for the likes of me.

The easiest way for me to find DX in a contest is to look at my IC-7800's
spectrum scope and just turn the dial. So as far as I am concerned spotting
a station a zillion times in a contest just doesn't help, and the big
players are loud enough anyway - the DX Cluster doesn't make any difference.
The Cape Verde station was so strong he could have been operating from the
same commune!

New high-end from Germany: http://www.hilberling.de/produkte/pt-8000a.htm

Simon Brown
www.hb9drv.ch

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