[CQ-Contest] Is Self Spotting now allowed in ARRL tests?

[Tim Shoppa]

First, make sure you have the latest rules. ARRL didn't update the November
SS rules (to the latest, version 1.06) on their website until late August.
Prior to that we just had a confusing tease about self-spotting from a
Contest Update earlier in the year.

Link to current SS rules:
https://contests.arrl.org/ContestRules/SS-Rules.pdf

My reading of SS rule PROH.3 in version 1.06 of the rules, is that
self-spotting is a form of soliciting contacts by a non-amateur radio means
(in this case Telnet cluster) and thus prohibited:

"Examples of prohibited conduct [...]: PROH.3. Arranging, soliciting, or
confirming any contacts during or after the contest by use of any
non-amateur radio means."

One clarification in 1.06 does explicitly allow a corner case of spotting,
that was never previously mentioned in past contest rules. In the
definition section you will find, "Generating spotting information for use
by other stations is not considered to be spotting assistance." So for
example you can be hooked up to a cluster and sending spots, as long as
you've set all the filters such that nothing ever comes in to you from the
cluster.

Tim N3QE