[CQ-Contest] What happens when you spot

[Tree]

Ev writes:

> I was thinking about taking the most frequent categories of replies and 
> creating a web survey that more folks would feel comfortable taking, but with 
> only three related responses, that won't happen. :)

I think your three answers pretty much cover it - except for one that I am
surprised didn't make it:

4. To increase the # of stations the DX station can work.

Recently, I have started seeing people working a DX station and NOT spotting
them - because there are already enough stations calling the station.  This
is excellent behavior in my book.  

Before the CQ WW CW contest, it was great fun to fire up HC8N and work a big
pileup.  However, often the pileup would get hard to manage as I would get
spotted and a large number of stations would call.  It takes a lot more 
energy to work guys when you have hundreds of people calling.  Maybe better
operators than me can state there is no such thing as a pileup too big, but
I found myself challenged to work it efficiently when I was tired.

One thing I would do is let people know what frequency I was listening on.
This is a "secret" some of the recent DX peditions have been doing.  It is
great fun to start sending "37" a few times and see how long it takes for
people to start calling me on 10137 (for example) - while the people who 
just keep sending without listening continue calling "up 1".  This rewards
those who listen and enables those without the strongest signals to have a
shot at working me.  

However, even though I am having no problem attracing new people, someone 
will want to show off that they found the secret and make a post list this:

VE2XYZ    10109.4 HC8N        QSX 10.146.01                 0311 21 Nov 2006

This serves no useful purpose in my book.  If you made the spot and just
indicated my TX frequency, then you have alerted everyone that HC8N is
on the band.  Then they can listen - and hear what is going on and act
on that information and work me.  Posting the QSX frequency results in 
a hord of people all calling me on 10.14601 - which is next to useless
and I instantly QSY and start listening somewhere else.

So - PLEASE think about the impact of your spots.  Why post the QSX
frequency IF the station has a pileup?  It is counterproductive.  Put
your desire to brag that you found the right frequency on the back 
shelf and let the DX station work the pileup the way they want.

If the people can't hear the DX station telling them where to transmit,
then they probably don't have any shot at working them anyway.

I like it better when I see spots like this:

RA4LW     10109.7 HC8N        op.N6TR, good ears            0456 21 Nov 2006

Maybe I had good ears because RA4LW listened to my instructions and 
transmitted on a clear frequency.  This is much more fun for the DX
station and makes it worth losing sleep over to keep handing out QSOs.

73 Tree N6TR
tree at kkn.net