[CQ-Contest] Self spotting

[Henry Pollock - K4TMC]

Mike,

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

As someone who operates "unassisted" and claims to be "unassisted" in my
submitted logs, I feel disadvantaged against those "unassisted" who self
spot. As someone else posed a short while back, self spotting is like
having a second radio calling CQ for you while operating radio one, thus a
variation on SO2R. It would be nice to know in the published results which
"unassisted" stations posted a single or more self spot. But then there are
those who would use a different call when spotting themselves...Oh my,
Pandora's box has been opened...the key tossed in the ocean...and the lock
mechanism damaged beyond repair...

I know I have been spotted in the past, but I don't know by whom, and I
surely have not asked anyone to spot me.

73,
Henry - K4TMC


On Mon, Mar 11, 2024 at 2:42 PM Mike Fatchett W0MU <w0mu at w0mu.com> wrote:

> 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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