[CQ-Contest] Spotting - not

Tue Feb 21 11:49:04 EST 2017

Hi Mike:

Ethically, it is an easy call.  Technically, this was our first contest
using Skimmer and I'm sure we'll get more sophisticated about filtering, but
in the meantime, I noticed that the Skimmer would spot us with a garbled
call on harmonics of our tx frequency.  Putting that out to the world would
be ..doubleplus ungood.

Folks, please, please, please continue to spot to the clusters.  Skimmer and
RBN help a lot of course, but 

1)  Sometimes people turn off the feed to RBN during a contest.  The feed is
a wholelottapackets, and if (not a good idea but it happens) the pc running
skimmer is also used for CAT/contest logging, that can be a problem.
2)  As we saw in this contest, RBN is non redundant.  If it crashes or bogs
down, that's it.
3)  Skimmer is great as is RBN, but both provide such large amounts of data
that it requires some extra mental cycles to figure out what is relevant.
If you are in rate mode, (or are in hour 41 of a 48 hour contest!), you want
to think as little as possible.
4)  Habit.  There still aren't a ton of RTTY skimmers, and of course nothing
for SSB.  I've noticed pretty good spotting during RTTY contests, and want
it to stay that way, but decreasing on SSB.

73
Steve KL7SB

-----Original Message-----
From: CQ-Contest [mailto:cq-contest-bounces at contesting.com] On Behalf Of
W0MU Mike Fatchett
Sent: Monday, February 20, 2017 7:16 PM
To: cq-contest at contesting.com
Subject: Re: [CQ-Contest] Spotting - not

V3M here,

I noticed that I was able to work plenty of people on 10m and very few
people bothered to spot me.  I think people think that the RBN picks up
everything.  It does not!

I appreciate the people that did spot me and tonight I have seen a big
improvement in spots.  Maybe the DXers are better about it? Maybe the
Contesters do not want to alert their competition?  When we were spotted
regularly the rates were sustainable at 150ish plus.  When no spots the rate
was much less.  Are people tuning for mini pileups or there are lots of non
competitors using spots.

I think we are nearly to the point that we might as well just program in
self spotting every 5 minutes or 15 minutes.  It would save a bunch of
electricity across the globe.

I honestly felt like I should have set up my own skimmer here to spot
myself.  This would probably be looked on poorly.  I am not sure what the
difference is anymore.  I have a skimmer at home W0MU-1 but I block my
callsign from being spotted, should I?

V31MU/W0MU

On 2/20/2017 8:40 PM, Matt Murphy wrote:
> I think RBN was very bogged down on Saturday night. Spots were taking 
> 30+ minutes to appear.
>
> 73,
> Matt NQ6N
>
> On Mon, Feb 20, 2017 at 8:20 PM Gerry Hull <gerry at yccc.org> wrote:
>
>> KE1J was very active from K2LE in Vermont.
>>
>> In CW contesting, the need to spot has virtually been eliminated by 
>> the RBN.
>>
>> In fact, if you are not looking at RBN spots, you are at a disadvantage.
>>
>> This has a detrimental effect on SSB, as it is not automated.
>>
>> However, for Assisted operating in the real world, RBN is here to stay.
>>
>> RBN hurt us at VY1AAA, as we were not manually spotted much, and 
>> prop, especially in Europe, was not so hot, so we were not picked up 
>> by RBN.
>>
>> The is game in CW contesting now.
>>
>> 73, Gerry W1VE
>> One of the VY1AAA Gang
>>
>>
>>
>> On Mon, Feb 20, 2017 at 8:04 PM, Ed Sawyer <sawyered at earthlink.net>
wrote:
>>
>>> Apparently, no one wants to spot any more.  They think that everyone 
>>> is using skimmer so what's the point?  I decided to make some notes 
>>> this
>> time
>>> in ARRL DX.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> -          When did I start CQing on 80, 40, 20, 15?
>>>
>>> -          When did I get spotted?
>>>
>>> -          Did I notice any big burst of calls?
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> I compared those notes with a look at the DX Summit to see how the 
>>> spots compared.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Keep in mind that I was likely the ONLY Vermont station CQing for 
>>> many if not most of the time.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> I found that in MANY cases - I was running for more than an hour, in 
>>> some cases, close to 2 hours! Before being spotted.  Worked 100 - 
>>> 300 stations before being spotted.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> I also had a very direct correlation of a noticeable burst of 
>>> activity
>> when
>>> spotted.  That means that there was a noticeable group of people not
>> using
>>> skimmer that were assisted.  Why don't those people spot?
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> If you run assisted, what is your comment?
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> 73
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Ed  N1UR
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> CQ-Contest mailing list
>>> CQ-Contest at contesting.com
>>> http://lists.contesting.com/mailman/listinfo/cq-contest
>>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> CQ-Contest mailing list
>> CQ-Contest at contesting.com
>> http://lists.contesting.com/mailman/listinfo/cq-contest
>>
> _______________________________________________
> CQ-Contest mailing list
> CQ-Contest at contesting.com
> http://lists.contesting.com/mailman/listinfo/cq-contest

_______________________________________________
CQ-Contest mailing list
CQ-Contest at contesting.com
http://lists.contesting.com/mailman/listinfo/cq-contest