[RTTY] More on tthe "gripe"

[Michael Keane K1MK]

At 04:33 PM 1/30/07, Doug Hall wrote:
>And I respectfully disagree with you. Taking it to the limit, what if
>everyone spotted all S&P QSOs?

Frankly, that would seem an ideal situation for the assisted and 
multi-op stations who need the spots. After all, the whole point of 
having a spotting network is to have stations being spotted.

Again, the caveat with spotting all S&P QSOs (in N1MM at least) is 
that it's spotting only stations that have not been spotted on the 
frequency within a reasonable time. So a station that's running ends 
up getting spotted maybe once or twice an hour, more if he jumps his 
run frequency around. That sounds pretty reasonable to me.

>You say that "you can filter out most of the unwanted spots" but that's like
>saying "if you don't like the spam I send, filter it out."

When the contest start off, everything is equally rare and needed 
equally by everyone. One can't know what others may have worked in 
the contest and who may need to see a spot for a given station. All 
you can know is that the station hasn't been spotted recently.

One man's spam can be another man's prime rib.

I'd much rather have my logging program scan through the spots and 
alerting me when there is something that I need, rather than having 
others trying 'be helpful' by making that decision for me.

>I agree with Phil - autospotting is just a bad idea.

Okay, if auto-spotting is such a bad idea then why isn't manual 
spotting a bad idea as well?

When I work a station S&P and he isn't in my bandmap, meaning I know 
he hasn't been spotted recently, what criteria should I use in 
deciding whether to spot him? Presumably, since I have not worked him 
before now others may also need him as well.

If one accepts the premise that stations worked S&P that are not 
already in the bandmap should be spotted what's the difference 
between spotting them manually and having it done automatically?

73,
Mike K1MK

Michael Keane K1MK
k1mk at alum.mit.edu