[CQ-Contest] Self spot in ARRL DX

[Tim Shoppa]

Stan, I kept detailed records of raw telnet cluster traffic from ARRL 160
and ARRL 10, logging every single non-RBN spot from the cluster in recent
contests where everyone is allowed to self-spot.

I haven't published the final results but very few entrants - only a few
dozen - were self-spotting. Very quickly I learned that I had to do more
than simply look for spotted call being the same as spotter. Some were
self-spotting from a call (or multiple calls) different than the call used
by them in the contest. For example a DXpedition spotting themselves using
a home call. This seems to be completely allowed ("what is not forbidden is
allowed") and in fact may be rather savvy for those at home who have turned
on "too much filtering" to only look for say spots from the USA or W3 in an
international contest.

Tim N3QE

On Sat, Feb 3, 2024 at 9:17 PM Stan Stockton <wa5rtg at gmail.com> wrote:

> 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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