[CQ-Contest] When do we spot? Should it be required?

[Peter Dougherty (W2IRT)]

I would dearly love to see that rule come down about asking to be spotted.
It would only increase activity and participation, and hopefully allow
longer runs for smaller stations who might otherwise just shut the rig off
or go and do household chores when they CQ to dead air repeatedly and have
worked through pretty well everything spotted. The added benefit to this, in
my humble opinion, would be that it might give inexperienced operators more
time running pileups, thus allow them to more easily gain experience, and
there's no way that's a bad thing!

I'm not so sure I agree about self-spotting, however. You'd clearly get an
awful lot of abuse with 'bots posting spots every 5 minutes, etc. 

I would respectfully suggest removing the prohibition about *asking* to be
spotted by someone else, and implement a rule about no more than 2
self-spots per hour, per band. 


---------------------------------------------
GO FRC!
Peter, W2IRT

www.facebook.com/W2IRT


-----Original Message-----
From: CQ-Contest [mailto:cq-contest-bounces at contesting.com] On Behalf Of
Randy Thompson K5ZD
Sent: Monday, October 26, 2015 10:29 PM
To: cq-contest at contesting.com
Subject: Re: [CQ-Contest] When do we spot? Should it be required?

I am not sure where the prohibition against asking to be spotted came from.
Perhaps it is time to remove that from the rules?  Or go even one step more
and allow self-spotting.

We sure noticed the lack of rate until after a spot here at PJ4Q this
weekend.  

Randy, K5ZD


> -----Original Message-----
> From: CQ-Contest [mailto:cq-contest-bounces at contesting.com] On Behalf 
> Of Peter Dougherty (W2IRT)
> Sent: Tuesday, October 27, 2015 1:15 AM
> To: cq-contest at contesting.com
> Subject: Re: [CQ-Contest] When do we spot? Should it be required?
> 
> As a stateside op who likes to run I'm often frustrated by the lack of 
> spots generated by DX stations for guys on this side. I don't like the 
> rule about being unable to ask to be spotted but I'll never violate it.
> What I *might* say to a caller, if I'm CQing to generally dead air, is 
> "thanks for the call, it was gettin' pretty lonely here." Once in a 
> very long while someone will give me a sympathy spot. And if not, I'll 
> just try to find a new fishing hole. If it were permitted to ask for 
> spots I bet the average score amongst mid-sized stations would go up 
> by a million or two per contest due to longer runs.
> 
> When it comes to me spotting I have the "spot all S&P QSOs" feature 
> turned on in N1MM. This spots any QSO that didn't appear in my bandmap 
> that I enter manually. I doesn't re-spot posted calls, however. I wish 
> that feature was set to on by default or would stay on once engaged 
> but that's a policy decision by Tom and his crew.
> 
> I try to remember to spot my fellow FRCers when I run across them, and 
> I'm extremely grateful when one spots me in return, but at the end of 
> the day, it seems that EU and Caribbean stations will be spotted far 
> more than US stations. In my own case, I was spotted 15 times during 
> CQWW but a quick search of a few of the Caribbean powerhouses with 
> well over 100 spots. It's no wonder they never run out of callers!
> 
> 
> ---------------------------------------------
> GO FRC!
> Peter, W2IRT
> 
> www.facebook.com/W2IRT
> 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: CQ-Contest [mailto:cq-contest-bounces at contesting.com] On Behalf 
> Of Edward Sawyer
> Sent: Monday, October 26, 2015 2:23 PM
> To: cq-contest at contesting.com
> Subject: [CQ-Contest] When do we spot? Should it be required?
> 
> Taking a look at my spots this morning.  It is very surprisng when you 
> are spotted and when you are not spotted according to DX Summit.  Are 
> there other locations where spots exist on SSB that is not shown here?  
> I had a number of runs during the contest and was never spotted 
> according to DX Summit.  A nice JA run on 15M and very loud and fast 
> 20M run to EU on Sunday afternoon, neither of these ever appear 
> despite producing probably 400+ Qs in the log over a few hours.
> 
> With CW, the RBN system is an effiient harvester of signals that 
> basically instantly populates the band map with spots.
> There is no such system on SSB.
> 
> The major contests call asking to be spotted a violation. Every 
> contest, I either hear or am asked a few times regardless.  I am very 
> fine with this being considered unsportsmanlike.  However, with the 
> increasing number of contesters having a contest experience that is 
> nothing more than clicking on spots, its becoming equally unfair for 
> stations to be spotted in very disproportionate frequencies.
> 
> I put this question to the contest sponsors and the assisted and 
> multi-op contest community: What is your responsibilty to make spots of
stations?
> Are you just a harvester?  Or do you contribute to the process?  It 
> would seem to be in everyone's interest that doesn't "spin the dial" 
> much, or at all, anymore to make sure that the interaction is bi-lateral.
> 
> Should a minimum spotting requirement be added?  We have a minimum ID 
> requirement in CQ major contests?  How about a minimum spotting 
> submission requirement for those using the system?
> 
> I personally like the unassisted experience.  But being a "ghost"
> in the bandmap world doesn't help anyone in contesting anymore.
> 
> 73
> 
> Ed N1UR
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