[CQ-Contest] Fishy spots in WPX SSB

[Tonno Vahk]

I decided to analyse spots after my SO 80m effort to get some insights about
their effect on my rate and propagation conditions. Well, there were only 4
for my dissapointment while only one from US - condx were very poor indeed.
But I noticed some spots that disturbed me and I decided to analyse the
whole set of spots just to see if the extent of "suspicious" spotting has
decreased from last year when Jamie, NS3T, provided us with actually quite
shocking data.

I am just providing you figures - you can decide what to make of it. I only
took out data about stations who had spotted only one station in the contest
or made maybe 1 other spot. I omitted most of those that had made less than
5 spots although their were quite some unpleasant cases as well. I agree
that we cannot disqualify anybody based on this data and we cannot prove
much but what we can do is to take clear positions and agree where is the
line that we should not cross. Are 15-20 spots by another member of the club
who has only spotted one station OK behaviour? It is shame to see that some
stations who are QTH-wise anyway in advantageous position still get some
excessive help from their friends. It makes me sad!

I am bringing this up because only by peer pressure we can get rid of
self-spotting and excessive friend-spotting. I think that would make contest
more fair and would benefit us all. This is all public data so please don't
accuse me in disclosing anything or in witchhunting:) If most of the people
find this OK then so be it!

1. Self-spotting...?

CA2WUI made 12 spots in the contest - 11 were of CA2WUI and 1 of XR6T

LU9ESD made 6 spots in the contest - all 6 of LU9ESD

SV9FBG made 6 spots in the contest - all 6 of SV9FBG

XV1DT made 4 spots in the contest - all 4 of XV9DT (XV1DT is his old call)

If those spots are really made by themselves then are they unaware of the
prohibation of self-spotting or do they think that it does not apply to
them??

2. Operator-spotting?

OM3CGN made 16 spots - all of 4U1ITU. OM3CGN was operating the station
before and after WPX, I don't know for sure if also in WPX.

JT1BV made 6 spots - all of JU1DX. He is QSL manager and member of club, I
don't know if was operator. He was also mentioned by NS3T last year.

3. Friend spotting?

ON5UM made 8 spots - 7 of them of OT3A. ON5UM was OT3A op in CQWW 160

F1ORL made 9 spots - all of TM2F. F1ORL is a member of TM2F club.

DL2JRM made 9 spots - 8 of them of DN1CUR. DL2JRM and DE2ROB (operated at
DN1CUR) are co-ops at DA0MF.

IK2HKT made 15 spots - 12 of them of IR2K. He is in the same contest club as
the op at IR2K.

IT9GNG made 12 spots - all of IT9FXY. They have gone to IOTA expeditions
together.

K1JN made 6 spots - all of WE1H. They are members of the same contest group.

K4ISV made 7 spots - all of VP5V. K4ISV is the owner of VP5V villa-QTH.

UA9JMB made 7 spots - all of RA9JR. They are co-ops in RK9JWR.

W8QZA made 17 spots - 16 of them of TI5N. W8QZA is a very frequent op from
TI5N, but not this time.

YL2LY made 15 spots - 14 of them of C5P. His friends YL stations were
operating from C5.

4. Cases with extremely strong army of supporters. Those cases are quite
interesting!

L71F case - LT1H (L71H) caught also NS3T's eye last year:

CE3BFZ made 6 spots - all of L71F
KQ7W made 6 spots - all of L71F
LU4ESE made 12 spots - all of L71F
LU6EBY made 3 spots - all of L71F
LU8ASO made 3 spots - all of L71F
YV5MMX made 9 spots - all of L71F
ZP5MAL made 5 spots - all of L71F
This looks like a full time spotting team! - 44 spots.

ZP40Z case - operator ZP5AZL

JA7AYE made 3 spots - all of ZP40Z
JA7XYE made 4 spots - all of ZP40Z
N3BNA made 6 spots - all of ZP40Z. N3BNA is a very good friend of ZP5AZL.
PY5QAZ made 2 spots - all of ZP40Z
ZP5VBA made 4 spots - all of ZP40Z

TO3M case - QTH FM5BH

F6HEQ made 5 spots - all of TO3M. F6HEQ is QSL manager for FM5BH
F8AAN made 3 spots - all of TO3M
FM5BH made 2 spots - all of TO3M
FM5DS made 7 spots - all of TO3M. FM5DS is co-op of FM5BH
FM5FJ made 5 spots - 4 of them of TO3M. FM5FJ is co-op of FM5BH
FM5WD made 5 spots  - all of TO3M. FM5WD is co-op of FM5BH
FM5WE made 2 spots - all of TO3M
All of those spots are submitted from browser (they have @ sign) exept one -
the one only other spot by FM5FJ (9A8A)!! All the comments are with capital
letters  (!) and more less the same (MARTINIQUE ISLAND VIA DJ2MX) as if they
were posted by the same person. Well at least from the same computer.

Those 3 stations have really received a huge support from their friends, I
don't know what to make of it. I hope that you can decide whether it is OK
or not. I don't know. I does seem a bit unfair to me.

5. Cases were I could not always find direct link while briefly checking the
web.

YU6RKB made 17 (!) spots - all of YT6A
K8UI made 4 spots - all of YT6A

YS1MAE made 5 spots - all of HU1M

UR7IJQ made 5 spots - all of US7IGF.
NS3T 2002: UR7IJQ spotted US7IGF 12 times - UR7IJQ made only one other WPX
contest spot.

PT7WA made 4 spots - all of ZY7C. PT7WA is QSL manager and op for ZY7C
PT7VB made 3 spots - all of ZY7C

PP5CV made 5 spots - all of ZV5K

ER1BAF made 5 spots - all of ER1Q
ER1OO made 3 spots - all of ER1Q

EY8ZA made 6 spots - all of D4B

F5JIT made 5 spots - all of TM9OO
F8DGQ made 2 spots - all of TM9OO

G4WSE made 10 spots - all of G8A

IK1RLF made 19 spots (!) - all of IR2G

IV3DIW made 7 spots - all of II3M

IK6TJT made 8 spots - 7 of them of IR4T

73
Tonno
ES5TV