[CQ-Contest] Self spotting

[Mike Fatchett W0MU]

I still have not figured out who was damaged by this rule change.

There is little collaboration between the spot providers.  I don't know 
if Lee, VE7CC is subbed to this group or not but he could detail how CC 
clusters such as his and w0mu-1 work.  There is CC cluster, AR Cluster 
DX summit and more.  All the servers are run independently.  As a 
cluster server owner I have some flexibility on what spots I accept 
etc.  But most of the major parts are controlled by the software/developer.

I have no problem with servers that will allow or disallow self 
spotting.  That should be the decision of the owners of the software and 
server owners.

I recall when I had my skimmer going that the skimmer program would not 
pass what it considered self spots.  If my skimmer was called w0mu-#  it 
would not pass spot decoded for W0MU.  At the time self spotting was not 
legal and some people considered a skimmer located within the circle and 
sending spots to either the RBN or a cluster could be considered self 
spotting.

W0MU

On 3/11/2024 10:26 AM, Edward Sawyer wrote:
> What I found out last year is that while the ARRL decided it was okay to self spot, they never coordinated with the telnet clusters that this would be okay.  So while it may be in the rules to self spot, depending on what you do and how you do it, the world may not see that you are doing so.  What I found was:
>
>
>    *   If you spot with DX Summit using the web form, almost none of the clusters forward the spot.  So only DX Summit users see it.  Which is a small percentage of active contesters.
>    *   If you sign on to some clusters, they don't allow self spotting.  So it will accept the spot but not publicize it.  Apparently they "never got the memo" from ARRL.
>    *   If you spot either yourself or another person, within some varying amount of time on the same frequency, the additional spots are ignored.  You have to change frequency by about 1khz for it to go around that rule.
>
> The cluster community should really state what is published spots rules are so there isn't so much confusion.
>
> Ed  N1UR
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