[CQ-Contest] Fewer than 3% of contesters self-spotted in ARRL DX CW 2024

[Barry Jacobson]

Hi Jamie, I apologize, but know nothing about spotting, at all. What
is the difference between RBN and "Old School Network"? I am familiar
with RBN because I use it to check my signal strength when calling CQ.
But aren't all the spotting networks connected together? Which do most
contesters or N1MM users use? If there is a website that explains all
this, perhaps you can just provide link instead of taking time to
answer. Perhaps it is somewhere in the N1MM manual, as well, and could
provide page.

Thanks very much.

Barry WA2VIU
--
Barry Jacobson
WA2VIU
bdj at alum.mit.edu
@bdj_phd

On Mon, Feb 19, 2024 at 8:59 PM Jamie WW3S <ww3s at zoominternet.net> wrote:
>
> I will echo that, as soon as I started running, I could see I was
> spotted by RBN in the INFO window of N1MM......and got some
> callers....BUT.....when I got a manual spot on the old school network,
> it was almost instant pileup....
>
>
> ------ Original Message ------
> From "Saulius Zalnerauskas" <ly5w.sam at gmail.com>
> To "Joe" <nss at mwt.net>
> Cc "Tim Shoppa" <tshoppa at gmail.com>; "CQ-Contest Reflector"
> <cq-contest at contesting.com>
> Date 2/19/2024 3:45:47 PM
> Subject Re: [CQ-Contest] Fewer than 3% of contesters self-spotted in
> ARRL DX CW 2024
>
> >Joe (WB9SBD) I thought same as you, but I tried to do selfspot and found
> >how much it helps.
> >Not very much old fashioned dudies using RBN telnet spots. They just
> >looking to DX summit  :)
> >Really!
> >Sam LY5W
> >
> >2024-02-19, pr 22:38, Joe <nss at mwt.net> rašė:
> >
> >>  You should do this test in a Phone contest. I bet the results would be
> >>  very different.
> >>
> >>  In a CW test I do not see any need to self spot at all.
> >>
> >>  I mean each CQ most likely will be caught by the RBN, and spot you.
> >>  And your self spots will be blocked, ignored, whatever ya call it.
> >>
> >>  Only if you stop CQing and time it just right should a self spot make it
> >>  through.
> >>
> >>  Joe WB9SBD
> >>
> >>  On 2/19/2024 10:02 AM, Tim Shoppa wrote:
> >>  > I gathered manual (non-reversebeacon) spots from 9 Telnet cluster nodes
> >>  > around the world over the 48-hour ARRL DX CW 2024 contest, deduped them,
> >>  > and counted self-spots to see how widely self-spotting has been adopted,
> >>  14
> >>  > months after the ARRL began allowing self-spotting by all entrants in
> >>  ARRL
> >>  > contests.
> >>  >
> >>  > (Note that almost all other major HF contest sponsors do not allow
> >>  > self-spotting and strictly forbid it!)
> >>  >
> >>  > I also included as self-spots, the case where the spotting station(s)
> >>  used
> >>  > a different call than the spotted call. This was not at all rare; many
> >>  > contesters used a special call for the contest but were, for example,
> >>  > logged into the cluster with their regular call. Other DXpedition teams
> >>  > seem to have specifically logged in to clusters and spotted using
> >>  multiple
> >>  > members home calls - a wise choice for when the target audience may have
> >>  > excessively strict geographic filters on what spots they receive.
> >>  >
> >>  > Only 134 stations self-spotted in this contest, if I ignore stations that
> >>  > self-spotted themselves less than 10 times. There will be more than 5000
> >>  > logs submitted for ARRL DX CW this year, so this is fewer than 3% of all
> >>  > entrants who have adopted self-spotting. I'm honestly surprised the
> >>  uptake
> >>  > has been so low. In fact, the number of posts to cq-contest on the
> >>  subject
> >>  > of self-spotting in the past 14 months far exceeds the number of
> >>  > self-spotters.
> >>  >
> >>  > Top 10 self-spotters, and the calls they self-spotted under, are listed
> >>  > below. The self-spot counts below are after some aggressive deduping -
> >>  for
> >>  > example if a station posted themselves on multiple frequencies in the
> >>  same
> >>  > minute I only counted it as a single self-spot. You can find a complete
> >>  > list of all 134 stations, and the raw telnet cluster data, at
> >>  > https://radiosport.world/2024arrlcw.html
> >>  >
> >>  > The Top 10:
> >>  >
> >>  > #self-
> >>  > spots   call    spotted using calls
> >>  > -----   ------  -------------------
> >>  > 632     CR6K    CR6K CT1ILT
> >>  > 449     V3T     V31TP
> >>  > 427     S53M    S53M
> >>  > 341     W4NF    W4NF
> >>  > 340     AA3B    AA3B
> >>  > 306     W3LPL   W3LPL
> >>  > 267     MW4R    MW4R
> >>  > 261     K3LR    K3LR
> >>  > 244     PJ2T    K8ND PJ2T W0CG W4EE
> >>  > 238     OM2VL   OM2VL
> >>  >
> >>  > Tim N3QE
> >>  > _______________________________________________
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> >>  >
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