[CQ-Contest] Contest Spots

[David Robbins]

This has been seen before for other operations, some of them have been
traced back and summaries of results sent to contest organizers.

If the spots in question were entered from dxsummit (spotter call ends
with -@) the operators of dxsummit should be able to look up and compare
ip addresses of the originators to see if they were all the same.  If
they came from a spotting node the sources could be traced and the sysop
asked to help if his node has logging capability like ar-cluster and
dxspider nodes do to get the ip addresses.

> 
> During the recent dustup over spotting, I decided to search the DX
summit
> database
> for my call - just to see what might be on there.   I am not an active
> spotter - one time
> I sent in a spot after working some DX, mainly just to see my call pop
up
> on
> the screen.
> 
> When I searched for NS3T, I found a second spot which was listed as if
I
> submitted it
> during the ARRL DX SSB contest - the contact was with YP3A.
> 
> I got curious and decided to check out the spots involving YP3A from
that
> contest.
> It is somewhat revealing.
> 
> There were forty unique calls involved with YP3A spots.  All showed
YP3A
> as
> the DX.
> 
> I checked every single call in the same spot database to see if these
> stations posted
> spots on a regular basis - and half did so - familiar calls like
W3LPL,
> K1AR, W4MYA.
> All seemed fine there.   There was one cheerleader (N2GM) who spotted
> YP3A a bunch of times - in each case on 15 meters...but that did not
> interest me.
> 
> Remember, what got me into this was that my call (NS3T) was listed as
> posting YP3A.
> 14 of the 40 spots for YP3A (35%) were by stations that had no spots
> during
> 2002, and
> some of them had never posted a spot at all.
> 
> This is the list:
> 
> K4FWC    21246.5 YP3A                                     YO1828 02
Mar
> 2002
> K7LPK     21246.5 YP3A        vy gud sig              YO1844 02 Mar
2002
> NS3T        21246.5 YP3A                                     YO2010 02
Mar
> 2002
> KJ7UO     21246.5 YP3A                                     YO2050 02
Mar
> 2002
> K1QK       21246.5 YP3A                                     YO2052 02
Mar
> 2002
> W1AMJ    21246.5 YP3A                                    YO2100 02 Mar
> 2002
> W4IMF     21246.5 YP3A                                    YO2106 02
Mar
> 2002
> W3ARS     21246.5 YP3A                                    YO2126 02
Mar
> 2002
> W0GHZ    21246.5 YP3A                                    YO2130 02 Mar
> 2002
> N1BFF      21246.5 YP3A                                      YO2136 02
Mar
> 2002
> K2EVY     21246.5 YP3A                                    YO2144 02
Mar
> 2002
> KA9ZLR    21246.5 YP3A                                    YO2238 02
Mar
> 2002
> KG4GNO  21246.5 YP3A                                    YO2256 02 Mar
2002
> 
> 
> Like I said - for all of these stations, this was their ONLY spot of
the
> entire
> contest on the DX Summit database and for seven, the ONLY spots
involving
> their
> calls for all of 2001 & 2002.
> 
> What's more interesting is that each spot is on the same frequency
over a
> several hour period.  Others did spot YP3A during this time - a couple
had
> a
> slightly
> different frequency posted.
> 
> What does it mean?
> 
> Does it mean that someone at YP3A was posting spots, under the guise
of
> someone else's call in the US?   I am hesitant to accuse anyone of
> wrongdoing.
> 
> Maybe some of these US stations made only one spot in the contest and
> it happened to be YP3A.
> 
> All I know is, I did not spot YP3A - but someone submitted a spot
under
> my call....and the evidence shows I might not have been the only one.
> 
> Any thoughts from the contest community?
> 


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