[CQ-Contest] List of WRTC stations / Results /Overspotting, and its impact

[Ron Notarius W3WN]

This is really all academic.

The genie is out of the bottle.  There is no practical way to prevent
spotting of WRTC stations by someone determined to do so.  Without even
touching on Skimmer and the Reverse Beacon Network... it just takes a
handful of determined people to set up an alternative spotting system on a
couple of web sites.  And has already been pointed out, removing WRTC
stations from the cluster will only hurt the casual operator who is looking
to work them for their own purposes.

Penalize a WRTC participant because of cheerleading?  Absurd.  How can you
penalize a team for something not within their control.  Further, some
mischief maker who figures out which team is the one s/he supports would
simply post spots for one or more of the other guys... to get them penalized
or DQ'd.  

Provide all or the teams with the same equipment?  OK, let's say for the
sake of argument that you're going to give all 50 teams the same antenna
system, radio, and computer.  Who buys 50 radios?  (etc)  And you'd have to
give the teams time to learn the radios, or you give a significant advantage
to the team that uses that brand/make/model over everyone else.

Pre-record or synthesize the voices to mask the competitors?  Technically
possible, but is this really necessary?  Would it really work?  Is it really
worth the trouble?  C'mon.

And who knows how technology is going to change in the next four years?  We
didn't have skimmer or RBN the last time around -- who knows what the
spotting system will be like the next time?  This whole discussion might be
moot.

No, the bottom line is that a significant aspect of the WRTC is beyond our
control.  It has to be, or the WRTC teams work each other and the "hard
core" contesters and nobody else.  

This is a problem we can not fix.  We simply have to accept that there will
be cheerleaders, there will be mischief makers out to gum up the works just
because, and deal with it.

73, ron w3wn