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Speak Out: A post-contest accuracy report for cluster spotting?

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WA2GO on 2010-05-17
It would be cool if users could turn on or off the display of a spotter "feedback" rating (that looks just like ebay feedback, following their call in parenthesis) showing their historical spot accuracy. That would serve two purposes: 1. Give the person using the spot a relative confidence level in the accuracy of the spot; and 2. Shame the bad spotters to either be more careful or stop spotting. Of course, this would only work if they feel some sort of embarrassment at putting out garbage. (My own personal view on this is that your confidence level in the accuracy of any spot should be exactly 0% regardless of WHO made it. But the truth is, some people do probably log spots with a confidence level higher than 0%.)

wd4ddu on 2010-04-07
I personally would like to see how accurate MY OWN spots were during a particular contest. I am not interested in others mostly because anyone could log onto a particular packet cluster and use any call sign they wanted. I, like any good operator, verify the call with my own ears before I attempt to work the station. What I hate the most about the packet cluster is the public arguing that goes on between stations. Accusations of self spotting and the rediculous arguing over 14.300 are two prime examples.

Anonymous on 2009-09-28
I decided to run 100% S&P. Too many mucked up
spots for my taste so no clusters during
contests. Nothing at all wrong with those who
use assistance...I choose not to.

W0MU on 2009-02-23
It is the operators job to make sure who the station is he or she is working. Mistakes happen.

N6RNO on 2008-11-17
For club oriented contests, spotting is a
great way for us smaller stations to help
the team. We hear more stations than we can
actually work. I think most spot errors are
typos or poor hearing...and not deliberate
mistakes. It would be interesting to get a
statistical analysis of the error rate and a
full busted call analysis targeted at typos
and D/B/P type of mistakes. The analysis
should be an aggregate and not single out
who spotted (unless the error rate >> 30%
for 30+ spots)

I always listen to the exchange and log what
I hear but still get caught on B/D type
mistakes when the phonetics where not used.

On the issue of B4, work them, dups never
hurt in the log and B4 can take longer than
working them when you hear them cleanly. If
they are noisy then give a B4. Some of us
argue over the B4 because we do not have you
in our logs correct. You may end up with a
NIL because we may choose to delete the
contact completely instead of correcting our
logs.

Anonymous on 2008-08-26
Not only should they publish an accuracy report, logs should be reduced in score for the inaccuracy rate.

W5JNP on 2008-07-25
On contest that allow spots I only use them as a tool. I don't
take them for face value. I ALWAYS still listen and get the
correct call before I key the mic. Maybe if more listen before
they keyed the dups would disappear.

Spots != Truth

Jeff
W5JNP

Anonymous on 2008-07-24
I'm all for spoff spotting. Contesters today are too dependent of the packet cluster. Why is the cluster so active even on contests where it is not allowed. Spot the fake ones and make the wennies work for it and let the real contesters earn the contacts. But hey, that's just my opinion.

k6iii on 2008-04-05
I do a lot of spotting on the DX clusters during HF contests. I'm not a big gun station and don't kid myself that I might someday be a top gun. I am, however, a member of a large west coast contest club. How can I help the group achieve their goal of big/biggest scores? I could just participate and add my moderate score to the club aggregate or I could provide alerts to the group via spots of multipliers I hear. I will also spot the group's running stations and members I hear in order to increase their visibility to the contesting world. I think it adds value to the overall experience. So I have set up my hot keys to make it easy to post a spot. Some folks will find so many spots annoying or of little value. I beg to differ.

I must of made a zillion spots in WPX SSB recently (did you notice?). With so many unique calls on the air, practically half the stations I tune across will be a multiplier of some sort or the other. Someone using a fake call sign (US2LID) did object by posting a spot with my call telling me to stop spotting. I actually did stop for a while. I discussed this with several club members and without exception they said how useful they found my spotting and to keep it up.

Do I make mistakes spotting? You bet I do, but not on purpose. I sometimes fat-finger the keyboard and hit that Enter key too quickly. I am annoyed with myself when that happens and endeavor to do better.

My Opinions:
Self spotting should not be done. Many contest sponsors state this in their rules.

Fake spots are outrageous behavior and should not be done.

Comments like "when CW" or "When 17m" etc are a waste of time. I truely doubt that the DX/Contest station is looking at these comments.

OK.... I'm off my soapbox.... no flames, please.

PY3FJ on 2008-04-03
I have means to see who spotted me, but if the spotter sends a wrong call (just changing one letter or number) I can't see it, because isn't my call. I just feel a wrong spot when the dupes beggin to appear. So we spent precious time saying -we contacted before- instead of making contacts. This could be a spotter's mistake, but also could be malicious, trying to stop the pile-up.
Jac - PY3FJ @ PP5JD on the CQ WPX SSB Contest

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