[CQ-Contest] The impending demise of SSB spotting in contests - and should we care?

[K4Sbz Stan]

 I am one of the “casual “ contesters. I am an avid participater, but not a challenger for top score. In many contests, I operate non-assisted. Although I frequently “run”, the panadapter on my SDR radio makes S&P very easy. While doing S&P, I often work stations that don’t show up on the DXcluster. I would really like to spot these stations, but the wording of what constitutes assistance prevents me from doing a favor to those guys.   
  

  
I would like to see the definition reworded to include anyone who uses spots to make a contact, but not someone who merely sends a spot and get no benefit from doing so.    This would make me feel more like I am a part of the contest and not an outsider.
  

  
Stan, K4SBZ
  
  
  
    
  

  
  
>   
> On Nov 19, 2020 at 1:26 PM,  <N4ZR (mailto:n4zr at comcast.net)>  wrote:
>   
>   
>   
>  Did you know that over 40,000 different stations made at least one contact with the 8500 stations who submitted logs for the CQWW SSB contest in 2018? Without the non-entrant, casual ops, SSB contesting would be a lot less fun for us all. And why do the casual ops get on? I submit that for most of them, the chance to work new countries, zones, states and so on are what it's all about. And how do they know which stations to call, to achieve these goals? They connect to DX clusters. Okay, so what? Well, as someone recently pointed out, there has been a pretty steep decline in human spotting of both SSB and CW, at least partly because on CW, there's little need to spot anyone any more. The RBN takes care of that. But on SSB -- not so much. The problem is exacerbated because contest sponsors tend to view any cluster connection during a contest as evidence that the connected station *must* be assisted. This tends to deter people from spotting unless they themselves  are, in fact, in the assisted category. This, in turn, means that features like N1MM+'s "Spot all S&P QSOs" don't get the use they could. So, what to do? It would be helpful if contest sponsors would clarify their rules to specify that stations entering as unassisted can still send spots. -- 73, Pete N4ZR Check out the Reverse Beacon Network at<http://reversebeacon.net>, now spotting RTTY activity worldwide. For spots, please use your favorite "retail" DX cluster. _______________________________________________ CQ-Contest mailing list  CQ-Contest at contesting.com (mailto:CQ-Contest at contesting.com)   http://lists.contesting.com/mailman/listinfo/cq-contest   
>
>