[CQ-Contest] Merging Social Media and Contesting

Fri Mar 13 01:23:13 EDT 2020

Sterling,

I fully disagree with your assumption that Solicitation implies that he was
asking people to work him on a non-amateur means of communication.

Just by live-streaming his contest operation, attracts potentially a lot of
attention to people that not necessarily work ARRL SSB. It is even unlikely
that most active in that contest also simultaneously monitor W2RE’s
live-streaming. After all, most people are busy working the contest rather
than spending time on internet.

W2RE then through his “real time marketing” attracts casual contesters to
switch on the radio and work him.

In the best of cases, the casual operator works W2RE first, then followed
by a huge number of other contacts. The advantage for W2RE in that case is
a bit less than it would have been if the casual operator only worked him.

Sterling, you claim that people won’t be able to find W2RE on the band,
unless he informed people either verbally or via the video, what his
transmitting frequency was? Nonsense! Any ham with basic knowledge of
propagation would understand what band W2RE was using, listening to the
location of the stations he worked, and taking into consideration the time
of operation.

If just the band is correctly assumed, W2RE is like a virtual 59++ beacon
in most places. The casual operator would have found him in 2-3 minutes.

Another more lazy way is of course to search for W2RE on the cluster. With
such a signal and with such online marketing like live-streaming, I am
99.9% sure his operating frequency is recently spotted.

In other words, soliciting a contact, taking new technologies into
consideration, does not require any verbal or visual instructions, or
requests to work W2RE. The live-streaming in itself is a doubtless action
that in itself solicits contacts that otherwise would have unlikely
occurred.

I fully support Frank’s conclusions. W2RE violated several of the contest
rules. It would surprise me a lot if the contest sponsor does not recognize
those violations as well, and subsequently DQ him.

73 de Mats RM2D

On Fri, 13 Mar 2020 at 06:58, Sterling Mann <kawfey at gmail.com> wrote:

> 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
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >     1.
> >     2.
> >     3.
> >     4.
> >     5.
> >     6.
> >         1.
> >     7.
> >     8.
> >     9.
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> >
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