[RTTY] More on tthe "gripe"

[Robert Chudek - K0RC]

Phil Cooper - GU0SUP wrote, in part:

"If I understand correctly, the "spot all S&P QSOs" does exactly that. I
personally cannot comprehend any reason for spotting everything I work
whilst in S&P mode - and here is my proviso - in a general RTTY contest, and
yes, I do appreciate your reasoning for doing so."

To which KØRC asks:

Phil, I am curious what factor(s) you use to determine whether 
you will spot a station or not during a RTTY contest? 

For example, if you are on 20m and worked a DL, I, SM, F, G, 
OH, GW, OZ, YO, HA, SP, OM, OE, LZ, and an HB... who are 
you going to spot?

The concept of not spotting "garden variety" stations presumes 
some sort of clairvoyance into my log to know what multipliers 
I might need out of that string of prefixes!

Furthermore, if you're watching cluster spots during a contest, 
you're wasting time. The packet/telnet window should be 
minimized and you should be concentrating on the logger 
bandmap and needed call & multiplier lists. You shouldn't 
care whether there are 2 spots or 200 spots coming across 
the cluster network in any given minute.

In a perfect world, all S&P stations would be spotting everything 
they worked and the contesting software would be filtering out all 
the dupes. The net effect would be a bandmap showing every 
station that is on the air in RUN mode, worldwide. The contesting 
goal is to work them ALL. That bandmap would be constantly 
changing because some stations would switch to S&P mode 
while some of the S&Pers would change to RUN mode.

If I haven't stirred up enough controversy yet, I'll throw in an 
accelerant... This concept would help "level the playing field"... 
everyone would know every station that is active at the moment 
and the best stations and operators would benefit.  :-)

The WOTA is a project with a similar (non- contesting) goal. 
You can review it here: http://www.wotadb.org/  I do not know
how much traction this effort has attained.

73 de Bob - KØRC in MN