Pete,
You are dead on here. Game developers/publishers have the same problem
with cheaters and they do not tell you how they determine that you are
cheating, hacking, scripting, exploiting, whatever. If they did those
players would just develop better ways to hide their bad behavior. I
think CQ and ARRL should be very discreet on their detection methods.
I disagree with others that need to see solid proof. The contest
organizers are in charge. If you don't like the way they run it, then
don't submit a log.
This is a social sickness, that seems to be much much worse across the
pond. The cheating in games from Russian players is huge, then the rest
of Europe.
Apparently in some of these cultures, cheating is expected? I don't know.
Sadly people have been cheating in contests for a long long time. I was
told by the owner of a big Multi in the Caribbean how this team broke
the all time record. He was not a ham and I didn't have the heart to
tell him that they cheated to obtain the record.
In gaming, we have reflectors and forums and the once the cheaters get
banned, they whine and cry in the forums and claim innocence. On very
rare instances those screaming actually were banned wrongly, very rarely.
Check logs should be public as well. What plausible reasons are there
for not making them public?
Mike W0MU
On 5/7/2015 9:30 AM, Pete Smith N4ZR wrote:
The organizers have a real dilemma - disclose your evidence and the
way it was gathered, and you're simply giving cheaters a blueprint of
how to evade detection next time.
I suspect, as an old policy wonk, that the really hard part is
figuring out where to set the threshold for taking action. Obviously
every guy who forgets to put his radio in split mode and accidentally
transmits out of band a couple of times during a 48-hour contest
shouldn't be DQ'ed.
You can see wide signals (and quantify how wide) on any SDR, on either
CW or SSB (or RTTY for that matter. It's easy,but I agree that a
quantitative standard is needed, both how wide and how much of the
time. If somneone says, "Yeah, I had a problem, but I fixed it as
soon as someone told me", that's easy enough to check
Proving use of assistance is much harder. At least back in the day of
human spotting, you could develop a quantitative measure of how
quickly a station was getting to stations once they're spotted, and
say with some confidence which stations were using spots. But today,
with the RBN (or a local Skimmer) filling your bandmap, how do you
discriminate between a really good single op running 2 VFOs or 2
radios and one who is using assistance? A cheater would probably have
to do some dumb things to get caught, such as always jumping on new
mults as soon as they're spotted, regardless of frequency.
And so we come back to the threshold question. Particularly when
you're starting a crackdown, with lightly tested technology, do you
immediately nail everyone you *think* is cheating? Or do you hit only
the most egregious the first time, and get tougher as you get better
at using the tools you have available?
I trust Randy and the committee to handle this tricky business as well
as anyone can.
73, Pete N4ZR
Download the new N1MM Logger+ at
<http://N1MM.hamdocs.com>. Check
out the Reverse Beacon Network at
<http://reversebeacon.net>, now
spotting RTTY activity worldwide.
For spots, please use your favorite
"retail" DX cluster.
On 5/7/2015 10:02 AM, Stan Stockton wrote:
Randy,
There is a lot you are doing for the "sport" that is great work.
However, whether we like it or not, we have an unwritten rule that
basically says "We may subjectively choose who we "believe" broke the
rules, even without absolute proof. We can choose whether or not to
disqualify the entry, request that the accused submit evidence in
attempt to prove innocence and still subjectively choose whether to
disqualify the entrant regardless of proof submitted".
I'm in the camp of....I don't like it.
A quote from Caddy Shack comes to mind but wouldn't be politically
correct in this particular instance.
In my opinion, it would be better if the subjectivity of these types
of decisions was eliminated from the process. There are several ways
that I can think of to know with near 100% certainty that someone was
using assistance other than that provided by a band scope and a
directive antenna. They would use an objective, software analysis of
every single operator log.
Now we are adding another subjective area for possible DQ - signal
quality without definition of what constitutes a bad signal or
duration of the problem during a 48 hour contest. I can think of two
instances in recent history where prominent, high profile stations
had a serious problem and have concern that the subjective decision
making process would come into play while others were penalized.
OK, this Caddy Shack reference/metaphor is alright.
The thing no "decent, upstanding member of a society" wants is for
anyone to ever have fear of entering a contest because the rules are
adjudicated with a lot of subjectivity while other gophers seemingly
dig with impunity.
73...Stan, K5GO
On May 6, 2015, at 11:06 PM, Randy Thompson K5ZD <k5zd@charter.net>
wrote:
Dmitry,
It appears you are not receiving the emails that I am sending to
you. Since
you are reading the cq-contest reflector, I will attempt to use this
path to
reply to you.
Below is the email I sent on March 6 notifying you of the
disqualification
of your TO7A entry.
I had also sent an email on Feb 1 asking for recordings of portions
of your
log. Perhaps you did not receive it.
I also replied to your email from May 3, but that must not have made it
through either. Do you have another email address that would be more
reliable?
73,
Randy, K5ZD
-----Original Message-----
From: Randy Thompson K5ZD [mailto:k5zd@charter.net]
Sent: Friday, March 06, 2015 12:42 AM
To: 'dx@ut5ugr.com'
Subject: TO7A in CQ WW CW 2014 - Disqualified
Importance: High
Dear OM,
I am writing to inform you that the TO7A (op UT5UGR) entry in the
2014 CQ WW
DX CW Contest is being disqualified. You entered in the Single Operator
category (V.A.1). This category does not allow use of QSO alerting
assistance.
The definition of QSO alerting assistance is in rule VIII.
2. QSO alerting assistance: The use of any technology or other
source that
provides call sign or multiplier identification along with frequency
information to the operator. It includes, but is not limited to, use
of DX
cluster, packet, local or remote call sign and frequency decoding
technology
(e.g., CW Skimmer or Reverse Beacon Network), or operating arrangements
involving other individuals.
CQ WW Rules: http://www.cqww.com/rules.htm
Based on analysis of your log, we believe that you did use QSO spotting
assistance (such as the Internet, DX cluster, RBN, etc.) to help you
find
QSOs.
You have five days to appeal the disqualification and provide any
information about your entry. After that time the decision is final.
The best evidence that you could provide to us is a recording of your
operation.
Your entry is disqualified only for the 2014 CW contest. You will be
welcome
to submit an entry in the CQWW Contest in 2015.
73
Randy Thompson, K5ZD
Director - CQ WW DX Contest
email: k5zd@cqww.com
web: www.cqww.com
Facebook: www.facebook.com/cqwwdx
-----Original Message-----
From: CQ-Contest [mailto:cq-contest-bounces@contesting.com] On
Behalf Of
Dmitry Stashuk
Sent: Tuesday, May 05, 2015 8:50 PM
To: Ken Widelitz
Cc: cq-contest@contesting.com
Subject: Re: [CQ-Contest] CQ WW CW 2014 TO7A.
Hi, Ken.
No any supporting documentations exist. No any reason was reported. In
violation of chapter XII.C.2 of CQ WW contest rules nobody from
contest
committee did Email me about any issues. I have never receive any
answer
to my Emails to the contest committee.
73's Dim UT5UGR/TO7A
Enjoy some videos of TO7A in CQ WW CW 2014
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xD1qr51cV-s.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Ken Widelitz" <widelitz@gte.net>
To: "'Barry'" <w2up@comcast.net>; <cq-contest@contesting.com>
Sent: Saturday, May 02, 2015 8:43 AM
Subject: Re: [CQ-Contest] CQ WW CW 2014 Results
Not only a lot of DQ's. The #1 SOABHP claimed score TO7A (UT5UGR, op)
was
DQ'd.
I would really like to see the reason(s) and supporting documentation
for
that one.
73, Ken, K6LA / VY2TT
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