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

[Tim Shoppa]

Bob W5OV of the ARRL has corrected me.

He writes "Your reading of PROH.3 is not correct. That exclusion is
specifically about making schedules, soliciting contacts (i.e.; CQing), and
sending or receiving the required QSO exchange information via non-amateur
means. It says nothing about spotting."

I myself fail to see any distinction between self-spotting on a Telnet
cluster, and soliciting i.e. CQing using non-amateur means, but that's
official from W5OV of ARRL.

Tim N3QE

On Tue, Nov 22, 2022 at 9:13 AM Tim Shoppa <tshoppa at gmail.com> wrote:

> 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
>