Topband: Is self-spotting ALWAYS wrong?

[Greg Zenger]

I don't have a problem at all with self spotting, regardless of band, time
or mode. However, if you do self spot, you owe it to the community to stick
around for 15 mins or so, on or near that frequency (if you can hold it)
for people to come work you.  Not all of us can get to our radios at the
drop of the dime, and then we may need to wait for our tubes to warm up,
etc.  If you self spot, and then QSY or QRT before anyone gets a chance to
get to you, you have just inconvenienced anyone who may have gone out of
their way to get to their radio to work you.

The *Ethics and Operating Procedures for the Radio Amateur *by ON4UN et al.
 as adopted by the IARU  section III.6.5 lists self Spotting as a No No.
Personally I think it may be time to update the ethics. Now that our
clusters have largely migrated to the internet, there is plenty of
bandwidth for information from self spotters. Our cluster/logging software
can filter out information that is unwanted, such as DX and DE calls that
are the same.  Now, self spotting in a contest (if prohibited by the rules
of the contest) earns you a disqualification. I don't think anyone will
argue with that.

Greg N2GZ

On Sat, Feb 7, 2015 at 7:52 AM, Tim Duffy <k3lr at k3lr.com> wrote:

> Hello Mike,
>
> Just a comment - the Reverse Beacon Network reported many W0BTU spots this
> morning from the Skimmer receivers. Anyone watching the RBN knew you were
> calling CQ.
>
> I also heard you FB this AM while turning the "big knob" here!
>
> 73,
> Tim K3LR
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Topband [mailto:topband-bounces at contesting.com] On Behalf Of Mike
> Waters
> Sent: Saturday, February 07, 2015 7:31 AM
> To: topband
> Subject: Topband: Is self-spotting ALWAYS wrong?
>
> Pardon my ignorance, but if there is little or no activity on 160, what
> harm does spotting one's own "CQ DX" do? I know it's frowned upon, but I
> have never understood why.
>
> I called CQ DX for awhile this morning before dawn, and no one answered. I
> know that propagation was decent, because I worked a VK2, K1N, and heard
> other DX. Perhaps if I would have spotted myself on the DX cluster, then
> some DX station would have taken notice and answered me.
>
> Not everyone tunes the bands looking for CQs all the time (like I did this
> AM after K1N's sunrise). But lots of people monitor the cluster.
>
> Just who would I have harmed (any why) if I would have self-spotted myself?
>
> 73, Mike
> www.w0btu.com
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