[CQ-Contest] Skimmer accuracy

[Tim Shoppa]

K1ZR Shane writes:
> NY3A  K1ZR 28062.4     CW CQ 28 dB 31 wpm      1654z 17 Feb
> K2DB  K1ZR 7020.5      CW CQ 10 dB 29 wpm      0855z 17 Feb
> K2DB  K1ZR 7020.4      CW CQ 11 dB 30 wpm      0753z 17 Feb
> K3LR  K1ZR 3510.3      CW CQ 26 dB 29 wpm      0207z 17 Feb
> Perhaps the skimmers misinterpreted a like-call sign?  I'm not excited about
> seeing my call detected and spotted during a period for which I was QRT.  An
> issue like this emphasizes the importance of double checking the call sign
> for accuracy before logging a point and shoot qso.

A quick look-see shows that K0ZR was running on the above frequencies
at the above times.

I was overall very impressed with the reversebeacon/skimmer accuracy
this weekend. My LCR will be very interesting to scour, I do it each
year. I am not sure I've EVER blamed any busted calls on the skimmer.

I have entered ARRL DX and some other DX tests assisted for several
years now. I try to be pretty honest to myself, that I had not been
using spots to my numerical score advantage, often I had been simply
chasing some bandfills for DXCC. After a lot of self-discipline on
rate, rate, rate (and don't forget to eventually get the mult), I
think this year I managed to use the spots to substantially increase
my score.

A very interesting warm-up, was RTTY WPX last week with reversebeacon
RTTY spots. With a nearly bottomless sea of mults to be fished, and
not much to distinguish one prefix mult from any other prefix mult,
the score goes up quadractically with time. Wow, talk about some
positive feedback!

There is an interesting exercise anyone can do. Go to the 3830
summaries, and plot Mults vs QSO's for HP or LP, one color for
assisted entries, a different color for non-assisted entries. There's
a lot of scatter within each "cloud" but there is also a clear
difference between the clouds. It is not obvious that everyone
entering assisted, is taking full advantage of it, but there are some
who are. I believe that I am just beginning to take advantage of
assistance.

At the same time - the "boy and his radio" approach, no assistance, is
also something I am developing an appreciation for. TBDC and NAQP and
NA Sprint are good examples. (OK, a lot of guys do the NCJ events "boy
and two radios" but I'm not there yet!)

Tim N3QE