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

WW3S ww3s at zoominternet.net
Wed Feb 21 08:35:19 EST 2024


**FULL DISCLOSURE**
I am far from what most would consider an expert......this is what works 
for me....

well, the old school, as I call it it, is no skimmer or rbn 
spots......just humans posting what they hesr and/or worked....as yes, 
to the best of my knowledge, all the spotters are now connected 
together. I dont believe that was always the case, thinking way back to 
the term "cluster"....but now, pretty sure what you see on one you see 
on them all. I use, and am most familiar with the AR (now AR6 in most 
cases) clusters. Some clusters have skimmer spots set to default, some 
you have to turn them ON to see them, I use the command SKIMVALID to do 
that, that not only turns them ON, but also means two (maybe 3?) have to 
decode the same callsign before it validates it and passes it on, that 
seems to eliminate a lot of the junk spots. I also filter to see non 
skimmer spots.....that command is NOT SKIMMER......also, I only want to 
see what I think I can hear/work, I dont want to see the west coast 
working JA on 80m, well after my sunrise, so here is what I used in the 
latest ARRL DX test....

SET DX FILTER (SKIMVALID AND 
(SPOTTERSTATE=[PA,OH,NY,ON,VA,CT,NJ,MA,IN,IL,MI,WI,TN,KY,QC,ME,WV,NC]) 
AND CTY<> K and CTY<>VE) OR ((NOT SKIMMER AND 
SPOTTERSTATE=[PA,OH,NY,ON,VA,CT,NJ,MA,IN,IL,MI,NC,WI,TN,KY,QC,ME,WV]) 
AND cty<>k and cty<>ve) OR CALL = WW3S

that lets me see skimmer (RBN) spots, and non skimmer( human) spots, 
that are not US or Canada, from what I consider my "local" area and also 
lets me see ALL spots of my callsign....again, that works for me...73


------ Original Message ------
>From "Barry Jacobson" <bdj at alum.mit.edu>
To "Jamie WW3S" <ww3s at zoominternet.net>
Cc "Saulius Zalnerauskas" <ly5w.sam at gmail.com>; "Joe" <nss at mwt.net>; 
"Tim Shoppa" <tshoppa at gmail.com>; "CQ-Contest Reflector" 
<cq-contest at contesting.com>
Date 2/20/2024 6:03:31 PM
Subject Re: [CQ-Contest] Fewer than 3% of contesters self-spotted in 
ARRL DX CW 2024

>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
>>  >>  > _______________________________________________
>>  >>  > CQ-Contest mailing list
>>  >>  > CQ-Contest at contesting.com
>>  >>  > http://lists.contesting.com/mailman/listinfo/cq-contest
>>  >>  >
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