[UK-CONTEST] Death to the cluster!

[Roger G3SXW]

At a rare station (eg VooDudes) cluster can cut the QSO rate in half. This 
is a recent phenomenon: many 'operators' have no clue what they're doing, 
just hitting the button to send their call-sign continuously. Then the 
station to whom I reply does not hear me go back to him through the bedlam 
so I have to send the exchange 3-4 times. This kills the operating fun for 
me. More recently (especially on 40 mtrs) I've had no option but to QSY. 
Then I get a few minutes of sensible QSO rate, then the bedlam starts all 
over again. I sometimes find that I QSY every ten minutes. Plain daft! I 
realise it's horses for courses: for a non-rare station it might help. But 
Cluster users need to put brain in gear before starting their motor. Cluster 
does help us to find mults too, but on balance I nowadays wish it had never 
been invented. Without it I guess that some 20+% more people could get into 
our logs: more QSOs, better scores, our score would also benefit, we have 
more fun and so are more likely to DXpedition again the following year.
73 de Roger/G3SXW.


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Paul O'Kane" <pokane at ei5di.com>
To: <uk-contest at contesting.com>
Sent: Thursday, December 10, 2009 7:28 PM
Subject: Re: [UK-CONTEST] Death to the cluster!


>
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: <mark.haynes at yahoo.co.uk>
>
>> However if we can conclude that overall more QSOs are being made
>> as a result of cluster spots, we must be conscious that this is
>> strengthening the security of not only contests and maintaining
>> interest but also our right to have access to the bands.
>
> I conclude that cluster spots tend to reduce QSO numbers because
> fewer people call CQ, and fewer people search the bands.
>
> 73,
> Paul EI5DI
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