[CQ-Contest] Assisted or not assisted question (yet again)

[RT Clay]

"assistance" is usually defined as not just "locating, identifying and working stations", but any time other people help to contribute to your score. Using this kind of outside assistance to get a better picture of propagation is then clearly not allowed- knowing propagation and the capabilities of your station are all keys to scoring well.

Just listening for beacon stations to see if a band is open is ok however because no one is helping you.

Tor
N4OGW 

--- On Wed, 5/30/12, Igor Sokolov <ua9cdc at gmail.com> wrote:

> From: Igor Sokolov <ua9cdc at gmail.com>
> Subject: [CQ-Contest] Assisted or not assisted question (yet again)
> To: 
> Cc: cq-contest at contesting.com
> Date: Wednesday, May 30, 2012, 9:14 AM
> With great number of skimmers used by
> RBN I have developed a habit of
> checking propagation on different bands by calling CQ on a
> clear spot and
> collecting skimmers data.  VE7CC cluster software
> allows setting filters so
> that you only see spots for your own call sign.
> Now I wonder would such a technique be a violation of not
> assisted
> category. In essence I would not get no outside help in
> locating,
> identifying and working stations in the contest. I just get
> accurate and up
> to date information about propagation which is basically
> more accurate then
> what I might have got with the help of propagation
> prediction software.
> What is contesting public opinion?
> 
> 73, Igor UA9CDC
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