[CQ-Contest] Spot Abuse - An Intermediate Suggestion

[Steve London]

Ward Silver wrote:

> What this does require is for the logging software authors to create a 
> feature called "Spot Prefixes Only" or "Spot First Three Characters Only" 
> (yes, the special 1x1 calls will get a free ride...so what) in new versions 
> of the program.  How about it N1MM programmers?  This should be really easy, 
> since the program already determines the call sign prefix for multiplier and 
> heading information.  It's a "simple matter of programming".
> 

Sure, it could be added to N1MM (although, when you think it through, it's not 
so "simple"), but the scenario would look like this:

Within moments of a "G4" spot showing up, some do-gooder will spot the full 
call. In fact, the do-gooder will be doing this with the full support of every 
assisted and multi-op station. The assisted and multi's are going to hate to see 
a band map full of "G4" stations - they want the full call, so that the bandmap 
only shows needed stations, not a bunch of ambiguous "G4" spots. Sure, some more 
"simple" programming could be done to only self-spot full calls, and not 
broadcast them to the world, but this wouldn't really benefit anyone.

73,
Steve, N2IC