[CQ-Contest] Merging Social Media and Contesting

Fri Mar 13 01:01:16 EDT 2020

Hi Sterling, 

If the originator of a live stream intends to compete in a contest, 
its incumbent on the competitor to comply with the rules. 
It doesn't matter if others haven't complied in the past. 
It doesn't matter if its hard to do. 

Correspond with your ARRL Director if you want different rules. 

73 
Frank 
W3LPL 

----- Original Message -----

From: "Sterling Mann" <kawfey at gmail.com> 
To: donovanf at starpower.net 
Cc: "CQ-Contest at contesting.com" <cq-contest at contesting.com> 
Sent: Friday, March 13, 2020 2:38:46 AM 
Subject: Re: [CQ-Contest] Merging Social Media and Contesting 

Frank, we have differing opinions regarding the judgement of the W2RE's actions and the intent of the rules. 

His CQs, exchanges, and solicitations were not relayed over the internet. "Contacts made through repeaters, digipeaters, or gateways are not permitted. This applies to all forms of active relays or repeaters" is saying the contact may only take place without relays. No contact was made using the stream. To do this, an S&P who could not hear W2RE but W2RE could hear the S&Per would have to entirely use the audio of the stream to complete the contact. However, livestreams are always on a fairly significant delay (typically 30s), so one could not make a real-time QSO with him solely by listening to him on the stream. https://youtu.be/aydTZN4nLfU?t=20005 is one case where someone said "love the youtube channel" but I guarantee the S&Per made the QSO entirely via amateur radio due to this delay. 

Nor was he soliciting contacts via the stream. Solicitation implies that he was asking people to work him on a non-amateur means of communication, but I don't think that's the case here. To solicit a QSO, he would need to give a potential contact his frequency. Arguably he could have also said "find me on 20m" or "find my spots" and that may have been a violation. He says that he's at the bottom of the band here: https://youtu.be/aydTZN4nLfU?t=97 and to look on the dx cluster here: https://youtu.be/aydTZN4nLfU?t=623 . I do think saying that is not compliant to the rules, but I don't think posting a stream of his operation is automatically solicitation. 

The video does not show his frequency, which would have been a clear violation, but others independently posted his run freq to the chat after finding it on the cluster. Ideally, that should have been deleted, but I don't think W2RE is responsible for what other people are saying. Personally, I'm in agreement with others that say an unlimited category would be good here. Ideally the self-spotting rule would not apply to unlimited, keeping us from having to think too hard about what self-spotting is. 

Additionally, Ray seems to be aware of the chat in the beginning but later on, as they discuss what frequency he's on, he seems to ignore it. It may have been put out of his sight, in which case he's not responsible for viewers conspiring together to work him. At least I don't think he is. But this is where the problem has it's greatest merit - does the stream give him an advantage over other operators? Averaged out over time, I don't really think it does. 

The only rule I could see him potentially violating is giving stations that work him a non-amateur means of verifying the information in their QSO. An S&Per might botch the QSO, be watching the stream, wait 30s after the QSO, and hear Ray "repeat" it on stream. But is that on Ray, or on the other op? I would argue the S&Per is breaking the rules because that person is using a non-amateur means to complete the QSO, exactly like if the S&Per texted W2RE what his exchange is. It's analogous to a gun manufacturer being liable for deaths caused by their guns. The catch is in the texting case, W2RE is an accomplice to the S&Pers violation. On a stream, is W2RE an accomplice in the same way? You would have to say that W2REs purpose for the stream is to give his S&Pers a second chance, but the evidence doesn't lead me to that conclusion. 

Jeez. I spend way too much time writing emails on this list. I'm sorry to write a brick of text but this is CQ-contest, and it's the one place on the world wide web full of other contesters where discussions like these can be hashed out into action. 

-Sterling N0SSC 

On Thu, Mar 12, 2020 at 8:36 PM < donovanf at starpower.net > wrote: 

T his video of the RHR Live Stream reveals violations of four General Rules for all ARRL Contests: 

www.youtube.com/watch?v=aydTZN4nLfU 

What are the specific violations shown in the video? 

1. CQs (i.e., soliciting a contact) were relayed via the internet 
2. Exchanges (a necessary half of every QSO) were relayed via the internet 
3. end-of-QSO solications (i.e., QRZs) were relayed via the internet 
4. His 14155 frequency was shown multiple times during the live stream 
5. 

What specific General Rules for all ARRL Contests were violated? 

3.9. Contacts made through repeaters, digipeaters, or gateways are not permitted 

1. 3.9.1. This applies to all forms of active relays or repeaters. 
2. 3.10. The use of non-Amateur Radio means of communication (for example, Internet or telephone) to solicit a contact (or contacts) during the contest period is not permitted. 
3. 3.14. In contests where spotting nets are permissible, spotting your own station or requesting another station to spot you is not permitted. 

73 
Frank 
W3LPL 

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