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Fewer than 3% of contesters self-spotted in ARRL DX CW 2024

I gathered manual (non-reversebeacon) spots from 9 Telnet cluster nodes around the world over the 48-hour ARRL DX CW 2024, deduped them, and counted self-spots to see how widely self-spotting has been adopted, 14 months after the ARRL allowed self-spotting by all entrants in ARRL contests.

(Note that almost all other major HF contest sponsors do not allow self-spotting and strictly forbid it!)

I also included as self-spots, the case where the spotting station(s) used a different call than the spotted call. This was not at all rare; many contesters used a special call for the contest but were, for example, logged into the cluster with their regular call. Other DXpedition teams seem to have specifically logged in to clusters and spotted using multiple members home calls - a wise choice for when the target audience may have geographic filters on what spots they receive.

Only 134 stations self-spotted in this contest, if I ignore stations that self-spotted themselves less than 10 times. There will be more than 5000 logs submitted for ARRL DX CW this year, so this is less than 3% of all entrants who have adopted self-spotting. I'm honestly surprised the uptake has been so low. In fact, the number of posts to cq-contest on the subject of self-spotting in the past 14 months far exceeds the number of self-spotters.

Below is the list of the 134 stations making use of self-spotting, and the calls they self-spotted under. A couple of the calls were not necessarily contesters but were DXpeditions or POTA activations. The self-spot counts below are after some aggressive deduping - for example if a station spotted themselves on multiple frequencies in the same minute I only counted it as a single self-spot.

#self-
spots   call    spotted using calls
-----   -----   -------------------
632	CR6K	CR6K CT1ILT
449	V3T	V31TP
427	S53M	S53M
341	W4NF	W4NF
340	AA3B	AA3B
306	W3LPL	W3LPL
267	MW4R	MW4R
261	K3LR	K3LR
244	PJ2T	K8ND PJ2T W0CG W4EE
238	OM2VL	OM2VL
223	EA8RM	EA8RM
202	CB0ZW	CB0ZW
195	SK3W	SK3W
191	N2AA	W2MKM
186	OH5Z	OH5Z
185	HG5E	HA1AH
179	S57AL	S57AL
170	WP3C	WP3C
164	N4RV	N4RV NN3W
160	ED3Z	EA3DZ
159	8P5A	8P5A
154	KL7RA	KL7RA KL7SB
148	EU4E	EU4E
147	TO4A	FM5KC
144	VE9AA	VE9AA
144	K9RS	K9RS
143	P44W	P44W
141	NY6DX	NY6DX
137	KU2C	KU2C
135	KI1G	KI1G
134	ED7W	ED7W
133	LY9A	LY9A
132	K3PA	K3PA
130	N6RO	N6RO
124	ND7K	N6WIN
118	KH7M	KH7M
115	W1JQ	W1JQ
109	WY3A	WY3A
105	IO4X	I4VEQ IO4X
95	K9CT	K9CT
90	TM6M	F6KHM F8FTY
88	K6LL	K6LL
86	N7DX	N7DX
86	LY4A	LY4A
85	RU1A	RT1B RW1F
83	VP9I	AB2E
80	DJ5MW	DJ5MW
79	LY5W	LY5W
78	W4RM	W4RM
78	OM0R	OM3GI
78	OK5Z	OK5Z
77	9A1P	9A1P
74	NJ4P	WV4P
70	IZ8FCA	IZ8OLR
70	CR2N	CR2N
69	HA5JI	HA5JI
68	LY4L	LY4L
67	ZF5T	ZF5T
64	K4RUM	K4RUM
63	EF6T	EA3M
62	ZM4T	ZM4T
59	KO1A	IQ3IY
57	K1LZ	K1LZ
56	K4AB	W4AUD
54	HA6P	HA6PX
52	S53F	S53F
48	N0AX	N0AX
48	JM1NKT	JM1NKT
48	II1P	IK1HJS
46	4X6FR	4X6FR
45	ZL3X	ZL3X
45	HA1TJ	HA1TJ
43	K2PO	K2PO WN6W
42	8R7X	8R7X
40	N3AM	N3AM
39	OX7AM	OX7AM
35	HA3DX	HA3DX
33	N9RV	N9RV
33	FY5KE	FY5KE
33	AO100RADIO	EA1Z
32	KQ3F	KC3WX
32	K7RI	K7RI
31	NR3X	N4YDU
30	OE8DDX	OE40WO
29	VE4GV/6Y	VE4GV/6Y
29	N8UM	N8UM
29	IQ9MY/P	IT9CAR IT9NVA
28	HA3MAR	HA6PX
27	HC5CW	HC5CW
27	EC2AG	EA2BXS EA2XG
26	VY1AAA	VY1AAA
26	N7EPD	N7EPD
26	KH6LC	NH6V
26	II2C	IQ2CJ IZ2GRG
23	Z68BB	S53BB
23	PJ5/SP9FIH	PJ5/SP9FIH
23	II4INTU	IK4UXA
22	NS3T	NS3T
22	9A5Y	9A5Y
21	LX7I	DK9IP
20	SN3A	SQ2GXO
20	N3AD	N3AD
20	K0RF	K0RF
20	IT9RGY	IB9A
19	WO4O	WO4O
19	SC3A	SC3A
19	HA5PP	HA5PP
18	W7RM	N6TR
18	KT4XA	NV4B
18	C6ANM	C6ANM
17	PY2PLL	PY2PLL
17	K8CX	K8CX
17	FH4VVK	FH4KS
16	R35AFZ	RM9RZ
16	NR4M	NR4M
16	EH3AMOR	EA3HLM
15	N2FT	N2FT
15	K9NW	K9NW
15	IQ5QO/P	IZ5GST
14	K4IU	K4IU
14	K3TS	K3TS
14	DK1FG	PF88ANT
13	XV9T	XV1X
13	W2XX	W2XX
13	S57K	S57K
13	R35DRA	RA4AAT
13	PP5AX	PP5AX
13	N4XL	N4XL
13	CW5W	CW5W
12	R2QA	RK3QWA
12	P49Y	AE6Y
12	EH5AAW	EC5CYI
11	V31XX	V31XX
11	CB0ZA	HI3AA

A compressed archive of the raw telnet cluster traffic from 9 worldwide cluster nodes throughout the contest is available at this link.