[CQ-Contest] Kudos to CQ WW for Busting Packet Cheaters!

[David Robbins]

"Leigh S. Jones" wrote:
> 
> Re: Marty NW0L's comments on CQWW Packet Cheaters:
> 
> It's not a flawless system.  I can imagine a number of situations
> where a correlation may exist without any real cheating.  For
> instance, an unassisted single operator station may be located very
> close to a packet assisted station, the unassisted station may follow
> the packet assisted station around the band (refine this technique
> through the use of a spectrum analyzer to help follow the loud signal
> around the bands) resulting in a strong correlation between the packet
> spots and his unassisted contacts.
> 

i could see how a system of correlating spots with qsos could easily lead to
incorrect disqualifications unless some way to exclude hits from the following
types of scenarios is devised:

1. using a radio with a spectrum analyzer as a second radio it would be easy in
the evening to be running on 20m and pouncing on the relatively widespread
pileups (many of which have probably been spotted) on 10m and 15m.  similar
effects can probably be found on other bands just opening or closing where a s/o
may be searching for mults this way.  it is amazing to see a new packet pileup
on a spectrum analyzer, its pretty hard to miss if you are watching the scope.

2. in the early morning on 10m and 15m the first loud africans get spotted just
about the same time a so2r or maybe a plain s/o would be tuning up the band to
see if it was open.  since the first spots often appear about the same time as a
savvy single op would be checking the band on a second radio or vfo a close
correlation is likely.

3. on 40m ssb most stations operating split working stateside get spotted often,
it would be hard to not work something that had been spotted at times.

4. on some systems there are users who run up and down the band just to spot
anything to fill up the band maps of the multi ops.  there are also m/s stations
with spare receivers that spot lots of stuff to keep their band maps full for
the next band switch.  with this happening it is very common to be able to dial
up a band and find a very high percentage of the stations that are cqing already
in the band map.  a s/o just going to the band and tuning up or down would
probably work lots of stations that had been spotted recently.

in general with the spot rates on some nodes running at 400-500 spots/hr it is
likely that if you dial up or down any given band that lots of the stations you
hear may have recently been spotted.  and probably a very large percentage of
rare (contest wise) multipliers have been spotted very recently.  it would be
good for the contest committee to publish their algorithm and results, while
they may be good, and their results are final, there is always the chance that
they missed something. it may also be that some operating methods may leave
s/o's open for false accusations so they may want to point out those practices
so they can be taken into account.


-- 
David Robbins K1TTT
e-mail: mailto://k1ttt@berkshire.net
web: http://www.k1ttt.net
AR-Cluster node: 145.69MHz or telnet://k1ttt.net


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