[PaQSO] Should mobiles self-spot?

Sat Sep 19 14:48:01 EDT 2015

Rovers / mobiles, checkout roverstatus.info. This newish service provides self-spotting using tweets tagged #rvrstatus. A single tweet will put your spot and comment on the Cluster, as well as your location on APRS maps. It was developed to support the new allowance for self-spotting in ARRL VHF contests, so it asks for grid or log/lat, not so important for HF. One advantage of tweets is that you can set up your Twitter account to tweet from text messages (SMS), so it might be more reliable from remote locations where cell data is weak for web sites.
PA QP rovers & mobiles, be sure to include your county. Probably best to use the slash notation used on CW, like K0BAK/JUN so the county stands out.
-- Pete K0BAK
       From: Michael Coslo <mcoslo at comcast.net>
 To: "PaQSO at mailman.qth.net" <PaQSO at mailman.qth.net> 
 Sent: Saturday, September 19, 2015 1:56 PM
 Subject: Re: [PaQSO] Should mobiles self-spot?

What you said, Pete.

I’ve always looked at the concept of spotting as just something people do. First off, you have to define it. A strict definition means you can’t ask another op if they’ve heard from some county, or as I have done while mobile, tell a pileup I will be in XX county in a half hour. Or people have asked me if I’m going to be in XX county. In a pure assisted universe, the only “legal" answer would be:

"I must regret, I am not at liberty to divulge that, so I can neither confirm nor deny whether I will be in XX county."

- 73 de Mike N3LI -

> On Sep 19, 2015, at 12:48 PM, TwelveVDC--- via PaQSO <paqso at mailman.qth.net> wrote:
> 
> Hi, Pete.
> 
> You positively should spot if you have time and can learn an easy and safe way for a copilot to do it while in motion, or ask every few Q's for someone to do this for you from their safety of a fixed station.
> 
> Party Rules are not mute on this. Ignore purists who tell you it it bad form in a Contest to self-spot, because this is a "QSO Party."
> 
> Spotting is officially encouraged in the PAQSOP.
> 
> -Pete / NL7XM
> 2014 Bonus Station Co-Chair
> EPA 
> 
> 
>> On Sep 19, 2015, at 12:37 PM, Peter Albright <peteralbright1 at gmail.com> wrote:
>> 
>> During PAQP a few years ago, a friend tracked W3CG/m's progress and spotted
>> us as we crossed county lines. It created a consistent rhythm of Qs for the
>> first 15 minutes of crossing every county line. Nice. Except for that, I
>> have never used any spotting network for anything whatsoever.
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> Now, with Laurie plotting an intricate route to maximize the number of
>> counties we hit, I wonder if we should spot ourselves. It is not much
>> advantage to us because we will make contacts no matter what, and we would
>> have to figure out how to spot ourselves using a smart phone. The advantage
>> is to those who are looking for rare counties in the NE quadrant. Our time
>> in some of those counties might be quite short.
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> We will post a refined schedule before the contest. Should we learn to
>> self-spot as well? Party rules are mute on the topic. If encouraged, we
>> might give it a try.
>> 
>> 
>> -Peter (AA2AD) & Laurie (N3KZI), dba W3CG/cty
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