[CQ-Contest] Self spot in ARRL DX

[Stan Stockton]

The question was whether everyone in every category could self spot or why allow everyone to self spot.  

The answer is that it makes it more nearly fair for everyone versus people complaining after the contest that so and so had all his friends spot him while I didn’t get any spots from my friends.  If everyone has an equal opportunity to let it be known what frequency they are calling CQ on, it seems fair.  

I made a comparison that you are in effect self spotting just by calling CQ on CW because you will be spotted on RBN assuming you have an antenna connected.  If some are not seeing the RBN spots, I don’t see it as a flaw in allowing self spotting but instead an even more desirable thing!  If someone isn’t looking at RBN spots, but looking at DX Summit in a contest, he will be calling those who have their friends spotting them and not be calling those who didn’t have friends spot them.  If everyone can self spot, he is as likely to call one as the other.

Self spotting on CW ensures that regardless of whether the assisted S&P operators are only looking at DX Summit type spots or whether they are only looking at RBN spots or a combination of the two, they will know where everyone who is serious is located.   

It is not surprising there is a big difference between the number of callers when you have a real spot versus just an RBN spot, especially in a non contest environment like people working some 1x1 callsign on a Tuesday night.  If I were to turn the radio on for a few minutes when there is not a contest going on I would never open N1MM and connect to a cluster.  Instead I would filter DX Summit for 20m CW, for example, and see what’s on.

Stan, K5GO

> On Feb 3, 2024, at 12:44 PM, Tim Shoppa <tshoppa at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Stan, only a fraction of cluster telnet nodes in the widely circulated
> public cluster node lists include RBN spots.
> 
> Veteran contesters know that RBN spots are where it's at for CW or RTTY,
> but a more casual ham may not know this. They may have tried a dozen
> different cluster nodes and not found one - or not known how to enable -
> the RBN spots.
> 
> Tim N3QE
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