[CQ-Contest] Battle of the Cheaters

[David Gilbert]

Hi, Pete.

I'm not really knowledgeable on software-defined radio, but I think you 
can accomplish the same thing quite cheaply (less than $30 or so?) with 
an SDR front end like the Softrock and the free PowerSDR software.  With 
a decent sound card you can supposedly record up to 192 KHz bandwidth in 
real time to your computer and analyze any portion of it later just by 
tuning through it with PowerSDR.  The price is right for there to be a 
LOT of such monitors out there.

Probably a log checker's nightmare, though.  Think of all the extra work 
that might bring them, both in terms of expanding their own review 
options and in terms of all the "help" they might get from other folks 
perusing dozens or hundreds of recorded files after they get posted to 
the internet.

It would sure make contest behavior (both good and bad) more 
transparent, though.

73,
Dave   AB7E



Pete Smith wrote:
> The heck of it is, all of these steps are readily do-able (except the 
> on-site referees).
>
> There is a device called the Time Machine 
> (www.expandedspectrumsystems.com), which can record an 80 KHz swath of any 
> HF band, and costs only about $175.  Station a dozen of those around the 
> world, recording on VHS tape, with good receivers and omni antennas, and 
> you can go back to any point in the contest to check what was going on at 
> any frequency.
>
> A recording, whether on tape or on computer disk, isn't an unreasonable 
> requirement from anyone with a claimed top-ten score in any major category.
>
> Contest sponsors should publicly announce that they will apply and enforce 
> the sort of analysis that K1TTT has been doing publicly for years.  If 
> falsified spots turn up, clearly to the benefit of a given station, that 
> station owner should be asked to explain, and if the explanation doesn't 
> hold water, he should be DQ'ed.
>
> The key to confronting the cheaters is to do it publicly and transparently, 
> with stiff penalties.
>
> 73, Pete N4ZR