[CQ-Contest] Domestic Spots

[Dean Wood]

Richard Zalewski wrote:

> What's with W6YX and all the domestic spotes this weekend?


Hi Dick,

I am often an operator at W6YX, and although I did not participate last 
weekend, I did speak to one of the operators today, and I'd be happy to 
answer your query.

As you know, the ARRL DX CW contest was last weekend.  W6YX was active 
in it.

1) Not everyone who monitors the DX packet cluster, or was active in 
last weekend's contest, lives in the USA.  USA spots tend to be helpful 
to the DX stations using packet.

2) Within reason for a given contest, we believe it is simply in good 
spirit to spot any station we hear calling CQ.  There has been a lot of 
debate on the cq-contest reflector about "packet cheerleading" or 
spotting a select few buddies dozens of times while not spotting other 
stations.  The W6YX group does not "packet cheerlead."   We spot 
everyone based on whether they are in or out of our bandmap.  The fact 
that W6YX was spotting both DX stations and domestic stations does not 
mean that W6YX was misinterpreting the ARRL DX rules or trying to 
contact any domestic stations for credit.  It simply means we were 
equally spotting CQers heard on the bands.  We hope the spots helped 
stations who chose to use packet last weekend have more fun, regardless 
of whether they happened to be operating from the USA or not.

3) Any stations who don't wish to see the entire contents of a DX packet 
cluster have been repeatedly encouraged on the cq-contest reflector to 
use their packet software's filtering techniques according to what 
regions of the world they want to view (or don't want to view).

W6YX has been thanked many times in the past by other stations for 
increasing their fun in contests by accurately spotting many stations to 
packet, and has been encouraged to continue to do so in future contests.

73...
-Dean - N6DE