Leaving Mults on the Table

I have an unusual fantasy: a statistical table for SSB assisted operators that shows the ratio of spots clicked versus spots originated. It would make visible those stations that consume spots but make few of their own. Considering the high activity in CQ WW SSB the paucity of spots is notable. 

The low number of phone spots has a variety of causes, some of which include:

• Laziness & negligence: in our consumer society many are conditioned to buy and not produce, so they click and never bother to spot, or perhaps only click on spots and never hunt for stations by spinning the big knob
• Conditioning: the pervasiveness of CW & RTTY skimmers and online digital mode reporting make manual spotting mostly superfluous, so we forget that phone spots are all manually generated
• Unassisted: although assisted operators are in the majority, there are many unassisted operators that neither produce nor consume spots
• Deviousness: when I spin the knob to find and work a multiplier, I am tempted to forgo the spot and, perhaps, deny my competitors the multiplier
• Self spotting: this is prohibited in CQ WW, but not all know that and may assume that runners are responsible for spotting themselves

Unlike most sports, radiosport is a cooperative venture: competitors work each other for points. You might even greet them and wish them luck after putting them in the log. For those in the very popular assisted categories, you benefit from the beneficence of your competitors. That is, they spot the stations and you click on those spots. Many are valuable multipliers.

In my limited participation in CQ WW SSB this past weekend I made an effort to spot most stations that I found, especially multipliers. For some of the latter spots I stuck around for a minute and was gratified to hear how many stations reacted to the spots. Clearly they were wanted.

Unfortunately I seemed to be in the minority. From reading a number of the post-contest reports on 3830 many others noticed the lack of spots. This problem (if you think it's a problem!) can be corrected by drawing attention to features in popular logging software used by contesters. Hope springs eternal so let's give it a shot. Since I mostly use N1MM Logger+ I'll focus on it. You can find similar features in other contesting software.

Manual spotting is for those that only want to spot some stations and not all. There can be many reasons for that (see above) but I don't want to be too judgmental. Find a station, work it and then press the Spot It button. Simple. If you prefer keyboard commands there are shortcuts, including one that allows you to add a comment.

The problem of spotting in phone contests is hardly new or unappreciated. N1MM at least makes it easy for you to spot stations you've found (or clicked on) and worked. 

Enable this feature and spotting stations you've worked is automatic. If you don't work them you still have the option for a manual spot. It's your choice.

Don't worry about overloading the spotting networks is you work many stations by S & P (search and pounce) since they deal with it just fine. After all, they can contend with the heavy traffic of RBN spots in major CW contests like CQ WW. 

One caution is that if you switch to running make sure that you've switched the software to "run" mode or you'll automatically spot the stations you work while running. That is absolutely not what you want! That can happen if you don't use ESM and punch function keys to play messages, or you don't use pre-recorded messages at all. With ESM correctly configured this faux pas is easily avoided.

Even if you are one of the few that regularly spot phone stations it's perfectly acceptable to spot them only after you've worked them or were unsuccessful. You don't want to invite more competition while you're struggling to work the stations that you found. 

On a final note, my plan for an M/2 in CQ WW SSB went off the rails. I had hoped to repeat the success we had last year. Operators had to cancel for various reasons and it wasn't possible to recruit replacements from among my nearby acquaintances in the time available. Since I was unsuccessful resolving all antenna projects and repairs in time for the contest I admittedly didn't recruit with enthusiasm. I like the station to be in the best possible shape when I invite guest operators.

Instead I operated part time in the single band 20 meter assisted high-power category: SOSB20(A) HP. I had no interest in operating a 48-hour phone contest by myself. It was noisy fun for a few hours, and especially noisy with the PGXL amplifier, which got its first workout. I put it on the floor under the operating desk to lessen the fan noise.

There's always next year. I hope to have the station work completed in time for CQ WW CW at the end of November.