I hate to post a public reply to a private message, but I started
rambling (is it age that causes this to happen???) and this just got too
good to keep between the two of us...
> I know you're a long-time supporter of packet, and I can assure
> you there's nothing personal in this. Basically, what I'm trying
> to do is illustrate what I see as the absurdity of using spotting
> technology to its "natural" conclusion.
>
> IMHO the problem is not how the technology is used - it's the
> technology itself. I'm probably repeating myself, but I consider
> myself to be an amateur radio contester, with the emphasis on
> radio and RF - using only modes and frequencies permitted for each
> contest.
>
> We'll probably just agree to differ on this one.
To really understand the evolution of 'spotting' you have to belong to a
big contest club I guess. Otherwise it looks like a big worldwide chat
line for making skeds, chatting, announcing expeditions, complaining
about whatever, and well, just about anything else. The original
purpose of 'packet' spotting was to help contest club members help each
other out to improve the club total score in the club competitions. It
was mostly just a replacement for vhf/uhf voice repeaters that were the
original spotting network in many parts of the states where clubs
supported them. So there is really nothing new about it beside the
range of the coverage and convenience... you don't have to spare an ear
for those voice announcements! As such the use of 'spotting' to help
multi-ops is nothing new and has been covered in the rules of most
contests for a long time...
The two basic rules in most contests that apply are:
1. If you receive assistance you are multi-op.
2. no non-amateur means can be used to solicit contacts during the
contest
#1 applies to receiving spots for stations you need to work. You use
packet to find qso's and mults and you are assisted, multi-op, or
whatever the appropriate category is.
#2 this was originally put in to prevent the 23z Sunday night
transcontinental phone calls to get some rare multiplier on the air.
But this is where the current spotting network causes a violation if you
spot yourself. In the beginning when the 'packet' spotting network was
completely rf connected it was theoretically possible to spot yourself
legally, however it was rarely useful since the distribution of spots
was normally confined to a club's home area.(though it was done on
occasion to tell someone else to move off your frequency!) Once the
internet became involved it had to be assumed that any self spot would
propagate via non-amateur means to somewhere and would be illegal...
many contest sponsors then updated their rules to add a specific
prohibition against 'self spotting' to make this legality a moot point.
The current discussion on cheerleaders is an interesting sideline, it is
not illegal by the letter of the rules. Though if prearranged it could
be considered soliciting by a proxy. I kind of expect that with the
speed and volume of traffic on the network these cheerleaders will soon
realize that just the 'normal' spot traffic is more than enough and
trying to jam in more doesn't help. Its kind of funny to look at some
of the data where an obvious cheerleader was putting in spots that
weren't getting distributed because they hit the node dupe filters.
many nodes only allow one spot for a station every 15 minutes unless
they change frequency... try to cram in more and many of them will
likely get dropped... and at spot rates that peaked about 1200/hr in
cqww ssb the chance for a cheerleader to get in some unique spot before
anyone else does drops quickly.
Of course there are cheaters that try to win at any cost and will
violate both of these rules in the process. #1 has to be addressed by
the contest sponsors and is being checked by the cqww checkers at least.
This takes some fancy pattern comparisons between logs and spots. The
second one they also address, usually by getting my raw data and doing
their own investigations.
My purpose of publishing my analysis of the data is to bring peer
pressure into play. Hopefully in a much closer to real time way so that
the obvious cheaters learn that someone is watching and that what they
are doing is not acceptable. If everyone had to wait 8 or 9 months and
then there was just a footnote or some scores just went missing from the
results or were reclassified the cheaters would continue unabated
thinking they had 'won' something.
In summary, its not the technology, nor even the way it gets used. When
being used legally it works as designed. And even though some 'purists'
dislike it, its only the next logical evolutionary step in the way club
teamwork helps us help each other. That dxers and non-club multi-ops
tap into the data and contribute their own spots is nice, and I think
helps contesting activity world wide in today's ultimately connected
digital world. I personally don't operate much, but sometimes I'll get
on and give out some points in odd contests when I see activity on the
spotting network, it must also drag in some others who are just watching
for dx or other reasons.
David Robbins K1TTT
e-mail: mailto:k1ttt@arrl.net
web: http://www.k1ttt.net
AR-Cluster node: 145.69MHz or telnet://dxc.k1ttt.net
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