[CQ-Contest] Self Spotting?

[Mark]

Hi Leo

If a pile up makes the DX station turn his beam that is fine by me.
Normally it isn't an issue anyway as in most situations they are calling CQ
with no takers - which makes it doubly frustrating when they can't hear
you.  It is very common on the 2nd day of a CQ WW contest.

Since most of our runs come from being spotted then we would love to be
able to self spot in some manner.  There have been many times I have been
sorely tempted to do it as working 10-20 stations an hour (or less) is no
fun..  I did raise the idea once with the contest group that we self spot
in a contest and then just put in a check log - which we didn't.

At the least (and yes totally selfishly) I'd suggest stations in remote
areas geographically should be able to self spot.  I'd say there would be a
benefit to all participants then,  It would help keep us engaged while at
the same time promoting some rare multipliers for everyone else.

Of course if everyone regularly turned their beams during contests then the
problem would go away entirely :-)

As an aside it still amazes me how many assisted ops do not use RBN in a CW
contest.  We always get bigger pile ups from being spotted than we ever do
from simply calling CQ.

73
Mark ZL3AB


On Wed, Nov 8, 2017 at 9:02 AM, Lyubomir Slavov, OR2F <on8lds at gmail.com>
wrote:

> Hi Mark,
>
> IMHO - it's quite dangerous to spot somebody before you have him in the
> log ... this could create a pile-up on his frequency, i.e. drops down your
> chance at all.
> ...
> In general, what about if the self-spotting is allowed ?
> Of course within defined limits - once every 3 min, 5 min, 10 min, etc. ?
> (condition, that can be easily monitored)
>
> Surely this will increase the total number of QSO in the contest...
>
> Surely this will equalize chances *"to be seen"* on the band map, not on
> the band ...
>
> Surely this will save an investigation resource of the Committees, thus it
> can be used somewhere else, at least for something more positive and
> creative.
>
> Actually, I don't know who of the participants will be affected, but I
> expect some present regular *"Non-self-spotters"* won't take part in the
> contests anymore as there will be no point in this. :-)
>
> 73,
> Leo / OR2F
>