Words of wisdom from KR6X:
Spot stations during a contest when your true intent is to aid the scores
of those who receive the spot over the spotting network -- never spot a
station when your true intent is to aid the score of the station being
spotted.
When I get spotted - like the other weekend - it tends to not help my score
at all as within a few minutes the resultant mess drives me to QSY & find
a new run frequency (not easy with just dipoles). I then CQ to myself for
a while, maybe get an answer or two, then I get spotted & the process
repeats itself.
This didn't happen before when it was just packet - the linking of clusters
over the Internet has taken away the "propagation delay" that used to keep
things manageable as seen from this side. And since everybody knows
that everybody else has probably seen the same spot, this fuels the
bad behavior as everybody tries to get through before everybody else (even
from the big M/Ms who I would expect better of [not-so-subtle hint: You
helped ruin my run, so why should I bounce for you, mate? Sod off!]).
If the linking of clusters was limited to like it was when those links were via
RF, then not only would the "advantage" your buddy gets when you spot
him but the attraction for the self-spotter would be significantly reduced.
And spotting DX would become mutually beneficial again - otherwise, it's
increasingly becoming a loose-loose situation for us all.
73, VR2BrettGraham
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