[Skimmertalk] Self-spotting by your own skimmer

[Jeff Maass K8ND]

First, CW Skimmer won't spot "... your call (or your station) just about
every time you call CQ..." unless you change frequency with each call. Every
ten minutes is the normal interval for repeated spotting of *any* callsign
by the Skimmer software.

Second, the inclusion of any callsign is not "self-spotting" unless it other
callsigns are excluded, or the callsign is treated with some preference by
the Skimmer. CW Skimmer spots should reflect the reality of what is
transmitted on the air, and just because the callsign of the sponsoring club
or station is included does not make that "self-spotting" by any stretch of
the rule.  

You might as well argue that tailoring your CQ message content to make sure
that the callsign is spotted by Skimmers and Skimmer Servers is also
"self-spotting", since by doing so you are clearly "...asking to be
spotted...", albeit by knowing the design of the skimmer software.

I can't say for certain, but I'd bet that the design of the CW Skimmer
Server software to not spot the same callsign as is assigned as the
"Operator" of the Skimmer Server was inspired by the desire to reduce false
spots of the images  caused by overload, and not in any way to address any
tortured definition of "self-spotting". I believe that this is included in
Skimmer Server, but not in CQ Skimmer: our four on-site (non-public) PJ2T CW
Skimmers were spewing PJ2T callsigns into our bandmap, as many as 8 at a
time on 160-meters. We tracked this to issues with an active antenna
splitter not handling the high RF environment cleanly.


73,  Jeff  K8ND

-----Original Message-----
From: Skimmertalk [mailto:skimmertalk-bounces at contesting.com] On Behalf Of
Bob Wilson, N6TV
Sent: Saturday, December 06, 2014 7:12 PM
To: SkimmerTalk Reflector
Subject: [Skimmertalk] Self-spotting by your own skimmer

On Tue, Nov 25, 2014 at 4:21 PM, Trent Sampson <vk4ts at outlook.com> wrote:

> I have asked the CQWW Committee for clarification but have received 
> nothing back for this weekends contest.
> Does Any one know Is there a requirement for a Skimmer that is 
> attached to the RBN operated by one of the ops of a Multi op to NOT 
> display the multi ops Callsign ? ie filter it out ?
>

Trent,

If your own local (or nearby) skimmer is spotting your call (or your
station) just about every time you call CQ, I think that would clearly be a
violation of the following, from the official rules
<http://cqww.com/rules.htm>:

*IX. GENERAL RULES FOR ALL ENTRANTS:*


   1.
      2. <snip>
      3.
      4. Self-spotting or asking to be spotted is not permitted.

One can argue over the lack of a precise definition, but the intent of the
rule is pretty clear.

73,
Bob, N6TV
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