SOTA activity on 10m during ARRL Contest

I plan to operate for a few hours in the 10m contest this weekend, but will only be looking for contacts for my SOTA log, ie. I won’t be entering a log for the contest. Reason: I will be spotted on SOTAWATCH and the contest prohibits use of spotters or loggers. So for SOTA purposes do go ahead and look for my spots. Will use CW and SSB.

Operation hours planned: approx 20151212:2200 to 20151213:0100 or 9am to 12 noon daylight saving time in vk1/2/3/7.

Andrew
VK1DA/2 for this activation

Hi Andrew,

I think you are not giving yourself enough benefit of the doubt on contest rules.

You are not allowed to use spotting networks to find contacts in the contest unless you are entered as a multiop.

If you post your planned activity before the contest, that is also quite typical of contest operations. Alerts should be fine.

It is not inconsistent with the rules to be spotted by other people during a contest. You just wouldn’t want to self-spot.

Hope to work you!

73
NF1R

Thanks, all understood.

73
Andrew

Just about every station who uses CW will be automatically spotted by the reverse beacon network. Simply being spotted is not against the rules.

Well, there may be a small difference between RBN spots and spots on SOTAwatch. The latter require an alert and are thus nothing but an indirect way of self-spotting.

By the time one has been spotted on sotawatch via RBN they are already on the RBN! So it is kind of a moot point. You do not “self spot” any more than if you had not posted an alert at all.