It's not just the bad spots. It's the cheerleading, self-spotting, etc. It's
the use of spots to talk to one
other connected ham (to extend the email analogy, this is like reply all in
email when you should have just directly sent email to one person). Its the
actual cluster spam, where ABC calls XYZ a lid, or the puts out asking "Where
is he listening" etc. Its the people who jump on a putout and start calling
before they have even heard the spot.
From a contest logging packet putout window view, you are right - it really
isn't that big of a deal,
since so much of the noise gets filtered out. But after a month back on the air
and seeing what packet spotting has turned into, I decided to spend my
part-time ARRL CW hours w/o packet - the opposite of what I would do 10 years
ago. From a score maximization point of view, not a good decision. But from
a personal fun maximization perspective, right decision. Glad there are still
seperate assisted and
un-assisted categories.
John K3TN
Said Jim AD1C:
On 2/26/2009 5:05 AM, John K3TN wrote:
> Two other Rip Van Winkle observations: (1) The Packetcluster
> monster has become to HF operation what spam is to Internet
> email. There is a nugget of usefulness that is way overloaded by the
> downside - the equivalent of spam filtering is badly needed for
> packetcluster operations.
Are there bad spots? Sure there are. I don't know the percentage, but
I don't th
ink it's nearly as dire as you portray.
Part of what distinguishes good operators from poor ones is the ability
to log the callsign correctly, whether that call was copied over the air
or grabbed from a packet spot. Being able to tell a busted spot from a
good one is a skill, the same as tuning across a raspy station sending
5NN T75 reminds you that you've already worked this station, even
without hearing the call.
73 - Jim AD1C
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