[CQ-Contest] arrl dx ssb spotting report

[asciibaron at comcast.net]

so what is the big deal if someone self spots?  seriously - if you rely 100% on the packet, you've already lost.  sure it's nice to see a needed mult or if 10 is FINALLY open on Sunday afternoon.  but is it really going to help a station make more QSO's - if anything, it's going to slow everyone down - esp. those foolish enough to duke it out in the pileups.

the dubious spots for the Africa station is more humorous than a cause for concern.    a M/M is going to have someone sweeping the band for needed mults between the other position's running, a M/2 will have someone sweeping on one band while the other is running on the dominant band, and a SO is going to be busy running like the devil on 20m ;)

packet is a tool.  it takes 2 seconds to decide if the spotted station is the one on the freq.  according to good practice, you should know who you are calling before you transmit, right?  so if the call is busted you already know that and can hit ALT+F3 after you have them in the log to "fix" the spot.

much ado about nothing if you ask me.  if your score and fun are so heavily connected to the accuracy of the packet spots, then i think you are missing mults yet to be spotted.  like 1/2 of the action on 10m Sunday afternoon - if you needed to see the spots than you most likely were missing Q's while stuck in the pileups.

what should be more of an issue is the horrid audio and nearly 15kHz splatter that some SA's seemed to be proud of.  IMO, that is more harmful than a busted spot.  that's 15kHz that could have been in the "clear" for others to use.  40m was a mad house and this didn't help matters.

-Steve, WM3O