[CQ-Contest] WRTC Spotting

[Carol Richards]

I have received several comments related to my earlier post. I think Jeff, KU8E was right on track with his suggestion up to a point. I think it should be left to the WRTC committee to make the determination after the contest and before the final results are announced. If a log has a dispropotionate amount of unique calls from their own country then the rules should allow for the removal of those unique calls. In almost every contest there are always some unique calls. A lot of times they are just busted callsigns. The key words are disproportionate numbers. 

I made a comment about WRTC stations always having an endless supply of stations to work. The same feeling exists on the East coast with a seemingly endless supply of EU and on the West coast with the large number of JA's. I stand corrected. There are times when calling CQ gets very few responses. Even the WRTC teams did experience those moments. The use of a packet spot might be advantageous to them or it won't! This is where operator skill and knowledge comes in. When a run dries up, this might indicate the need for a band change and that's what they did.

Finally, the use of packet spotting will continue to exist whether we like it or not. Perhaps, as Jeff suggested, penalizing a country's team might offer a signifcant enough of a deterrent to disuade such practices; especially if it is made known that the final positioning was directly affected. by these, few over-zealous supporters. A prime example of this was when a fan at a baseball game reaches over to touch or catch a foul ball that a fielder might have caught. The outcome of the game might have, as a result of this fan's over zealous action, been altered in favor of the opposing team.