[UK-CONTEST] Death to the cluster!

[David Cree]

I would concur with Roger's earlier comments.

When I am QRV from J8 I do not need to be on t'internet to know when I 
have been "spotted" - pandemonium suddenly breaks out all around the 
frequency. Outside a contest you can usually overcome this by working 
split, but I really don't like doing this in a Contest. For one thing 
it's very unfair to those working on adjacent frequencies who suddenly 
find themselves pushed out.

Last year in CQWW it reached the stage that I had to go to S&P or take a 
rest break because I just couldn't read anything in the chaos, 
especially on 80m. Certainly my "rate" plummeted. Only having a very 
basic /P station (100 W and low dipole on 80m)I could not hope to 
quickly crack other people's pile-ups. Maybe I would have finished 
higher than World 9th without this problem!

Not surprisingly these problems manifest themselves whenever a band is 
open to Europe - when prop. favours North America or Japan the situation 
is nowhere near as bad.

I suspect that some years ago the cluster did indeed help rates, but now 
the benefits are more than outweighed by the consequences of the 
point-and-shoot brigade, many of whom I am convinced never hear the DX 
station. Many is the time I have repeatedly answered an S9+ caller, only 
to have him (or her) carry on calling, with no QSO resulting and my 
"rhythm" broken.

Could it not be arranged that (at least in major contests) that the 
cluster only showed the Band, not the exact frequency? I realise some 
"operators" would have to go on a training course to discover the 
purpose of the big knob. And that others would start another Cluster and 
hope the Adjudicators didn't find it.

One further point - it amazes me that most entrants still claim to be 
"unassisted". Perhaps the Adjudicators should put out false "spots" and 
note the call-signs of those stations that appear blindly (or should 
that be deafly) calling on the frequency - they can't all be multi-multis.

73's  Dave   (end of grumpy mood)