Hi Randy:
Allowing self-spotting might not have had much of an impact. Allowing chat
rooms and other non-amateur radio platforms will have a huge impact.
Competitive assisted single operators and Multi-ops will have social media
coordinators. Unless a very carefully crafted rule is written, Single Operator
Assisted operators can have additional people helping with social media.
Live streaming offers the ability to confirm QSOs in real-time. The
video/audio feeds will quickly be augmented by machine-readable data for that
confirmation - and real-time QSLing! This effectively eliminates the rules
against confirming QSOs during contests by non-amateur radio means.
Many QSOs will now be arranged via social media or dedicated apps. It will be
interesting to see if stations still need to hold run frequencies in a few
years when the scheduling apps can just access their current frequency in
real-time and it becomes sort of like a sprint. I hope so - otherwise, the
single operators won't even be able to work the serious assisted/multi-op
stations.
73,
Mark, KD4D
> On 02/16/2022 7:23 AM Randy Thompson <k5zd@outlook.com> wrote:
>
>
> From the ARRL Contest Update today:
>
> "New Rules in effect for all ARRL HF Contests in June
> Starting with the ARRL International Digital Contest, in all categories that
> allow assistance (Unlimited), the use of online and other non-amateur radio
> platforms including but not limited to social media, live video streaming,
> and internet chat rooms will be allowed. In all Unlimited and Multioperator
> categories, the prohibition of self-spotting, and asking another station to
> spot you, will also be removed."
>
> Wow. It was one thing for the VHF contests to allow use of chat rooms and
> telephone calls, now this is extended to all HF contests. It should be
> interesting to see what unintended consequences result from allowing
> multi-ops and assisted competitors to spot themselves. You could spot
> yourself with every CQ if you wanted to. Or you can call people on the phone
> and ask them to get on the air. Or send out email reminders to work you
> during the contest.
>
> It is likely to have the most impact on SSB to produce spotting equal to what
> the RBN does for CW and RTTY.
>
> For an organization that has always been so timid and conservative on rule
> changes, the ARRL seems to have sprung this one without much consultation
> with the contest community. I assume it is in reaction to the W2RE incident
> several years ago in ARRL DX where he used live streaming on Facebook during
> the contest.
>
>
> Randy K5ZD
>
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