[CQ-Contest] Response to KA1LMR's Posting About Spotting

[Kenneth E. Harker]

On Fri, Mar 10, 2006 at 12:59:08PM -0000, Jose Valdes wrote:
> Hello all,
> 
> It was written "I notice alot of stations ask the statsions they work to
> spot them...."
> 
> I like to make clear that in the above scenario the station asking to be
> spotted should be immediately placed in the Single Operator Assisted
> category.

Actually, no.  Asking another station to spot you is prohibited to all
contest stations in ARRL contests.  See the discussion at: 
(http://www.arrl.org/contests/hf-faq.html#spotting)  Doing so should 
result in disqualification, not just re-classification.  It's similarly 
prohibited in CQ contests, and just about any other major contest worth 
operating.

Maybe I'm the rare case, but I can honestly say that I don't get asked by 
other stations on the air to spot them.  I've made tens of thousands of HF 
phone contest QSOs, and the number of times another station has asked me to 
spot them could be counted on one hand with fingers to spare.  It's never
happened to me in a VHF contest.  Does this happen more often on HF CW or 
HF RTTY?

-- 
Kenneth E. Harker WM5R
kenharker at kenharker.com
http://www.kenharker.com/