[CQ-Contest] Assisted / ????

[Mike McCarthy, W1NR]

The rules are a bit confusing.  They never say anything about soliciting
contacts over the air on the contest frequencies.  From the CQWW 2006 rules,
III A 1:

1. Single Operator High: Those stations at which one person performs all of
the operating, logging, and spotting functions.  The use of DX alerting
assistance of any kind places the station in the Single Operator Assisted
category.

However, from III B:

B. Single Operator with DX Spotting Net: Same as III A 1 except the passive
(self- spotting not allowed) use of DX spotting nets is allowed.

III A 1 might suggest that "any" assistance is not allowed.  But III B
specifically says spotting networks.  Go figure.  What happens if you ask
someone to spot you?

However, the rules were specifically written to accomadate the use of
spotting "networks".  What was once just announced over 2M and 220 FM
evolved into packet and now internet "networks" of spotters.  I don't
believe the rules were written to forbid single ops from soliciting specific
stations or help on the contest bands.

Mike, W1NR