Both K5TR and W4ZV have made essentially the same statement here:
>Definitely not allowed per ARRL General Rules at:
>
>http://www2.arrl.org/contests/announcements/rules-all.html
>
>"3.14. In contests where spotting nets are permissible, spotting your
>own station or requesting another station to spot you is not permitted."
This doesn't go nearly far enough, IMHO. Yes, that's the way the rule is
written today, but I think we need to find a way to tighten up on this
considerably, else our contest games will (have?) degenerate into nothing
but a beauty contest.
Let's look at some possibilities which skate past this wording, but which I
think defy the intent of the rule and cause enormous damage to the integrity
of the game:
"Hey Bill, I'm going for a new record this coming weekend, and I really need
your help. Spot me early and spot me often...drum me up like you've never
done before!"
"OK, club members, let's put this club on the map. I'm going for a record
this weekend, and I need you ALL to spot me early and spot me often."
Get my drift? I'm not saying this has happened, though I'm seriously
wondering. I do think it's legal, per the rules, but I also think this kind
of stuff stinks. In the best of all worlds, cluster systems would die of
their own accord because people would come to understand the damage they are
doing to our hobby and decide they don't need a crutch. Failing that,
though, I do think we need to work toward some kind of system which would
defeat the kinds of attempts to defeat the system I mentioned above. We
could never get all the local clusters to shut down during contests, but
there are just a few key connection points which could be disabled if we all
could come to a consensus on this. Else, as I'm said, we're running a
beauty contest. And I don't think I'm up to competing in that kind of a
game!
Bruce, ZF2NT
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