[CQ-Contest] Cheating

[Ron Notarius WN3VAW]

Tyler,

Thanks for the reply.

We (OK, me on behalf of the contest committee) asked several of the stations
involved if they could explain what was going on here.  We also asked some
of the club officers since the club station was involved.

One guy immediately started screaming to the mountaintops that we were "sore
losers" for daring to question anything; suffice to say, based on the email
exchange with him, that we're wasting our breath trying to reason with him
until he cools off and actually READS the email, as he's now accusing me of
not ever asking him for the very things we asked him for in the original
email.  Everyone else who's responded has been a little more reasonable, and
one of the officers gave the explanation of what was going on.

There's nothing in the contest rules prevent someone from doing just what
they say they've done -- ran mobile and worked only the club station to give
them more zips/mults than anyone else.  Of course, it's going to make the
score stick out like a sore thumb, so anyone reading the results is going to
wonder what's going on.  And the irony is, even if we took out the excessive
mults, they'd have won their category anyway.

It does make you wonder, though.  I've come to the conclusion, after over 30
years licensed (and most of them as a contester -- blame that on WA3FET &
the other contesters he was in cahoots with at K3CR when I went off to
college) that there are two schools of contesting:

(a)  Follow the letter & spirit of the rules, be a gentleman/lady, show
courtesy while competitive, in short, be a good sport and show
sportsmanship;
(b)  Stretch the rules, almost anything goes, if it's not forbidden it's
legal, all's fair in love & war & this is a war, search for and exploit
every technically possible loophole, in short, winning is the end and the
end justifies the means.

I try to stick to the first category.  If it costs me a win, then so be it,
I still have to live with myself.

73, ron wn3vaw

'Never attribute to malice that which is adequately
  explained by stupidity.' --Hanlon's Razor

----- Original Message -----
From: "Tyler Stewart" <k3mm at comcast.net>
To: <CQ-Contest at contesting.com>; "Ron Notarius WN3VAW" <wn3vaw at fyi.net>
Cc: <k8gp at k8gp.net>
Sent: Saturday, February 01, 2003 11:39 PM
Subject: Re: [CQ-Contest] Cheating


I wouldnt jump to conclusions...Zip codes can be very close together....and
the close times on different ones COULD just be one of them working zip code
corners.

I think it's unfortunate that they apparently chose to operate a private
contest machine of sorts, but it's probably no worse than what W2SZ does
every June to win the ARRL June VHF contest.  They send out a lot of private
rovers that never send in their own log and never work anyone else.

So...I would give them the benefit of the doubt unless there are obvious
infractions.

73, Ty K3MM

----- Original Message -----
From: "Ron Notarius WN3VAW" <wn3vaw at fyi.net>
To: "CQ Contest" <cq-contest at contesting.com>
Sent: Saturday, February 01, 2003 2:46 PM
Subject: [CQ-Contest] Cheating


> I would appreciate some input from those on the list who are involved log
> checking of contests how to best approach the following situation:
>
> As I've mentioned here in the past, my club runs a local 4 hour 2 Meter
> Simplex contest each year.  The multiplier is the ZIP code that the
station
> is located in, and mobiles can be reworked as they change ZIP codes.
>
> The contest chairman received today the log from the club station of a
club
> in one of the next counties.  The initial score seemed unusually high, and
> on examination, we've found at least four amateurs who claim to have
> operated mobile, worked only the club station, and worked the club station
> from at least 5 or 6 different ZIP codes each.  One claimed 21 different
> ZIP's.  This is not neccesarily impossible -- difficult but not
> impossible -- but on further examination, some of these ZIP changes are
only
> 2 or 3 minutes apart, and looking on the map, suffice to say, could only
> have been possible if their mode of transit was a Star Trek era
transporter
> or equivalent.
>
> No logs from these four stations were received, but their calls do not
> appear in any other logs.  And the four amateurs are all members of the
> club, some are officers.
>
> It appears that they simply sat in their shacks and handed out multiple
ZIP
> codes solely to boost the club station's score.  IE, they cheated.
>
> So far, I've emailed all concerned (at least to those we had e-mail
> addresses for) to ask for further explanation and the missing logs.
>
> Our options including simply removing the offending contacts if we receive
> no log (and DQ'ing those ops), DQ'ing the entire club log on the grounds
of
> irregular or inaccurate logging, or doing nothing.
>
> Suggestions on how to proceed next would be appreciated.
>
> The funny thing of it is, they didn't need to cheat.  They won the Club
> Station category hands down last year, and probably would have again this
> year.  Go figure.
>
> 73, ron wn3vaw
>
> 'Never attribute to malice that which is adequately
>   explained by stupidity.' --Hanlon's Razor
>
>
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