[CQ-Contest] cheating with packet - RD3A case

Tue Dec 11 18:28:14 EST 2007

If a station is using packet and getting meaningful addition to his mult count from it then it is also detectable from the log and he can be disqualified. You can jump around in frequencies or do whatever you want, if you keep hitting lately spotted mults too often it becomes suspicious, if you start hitting it them all the time it becomes clear. For SOAB later into the contest (like last 12 hours), once you cheat already, it becomes very difficult to adhere to well planned cheating strategy and you start to hit the spots too often or all the time. Let the following story be a good example. I have posted this to a private reflector what I was strongly asked to post it also to CQ Contest and thus I do it. RD3A (RD3AF) is a known packet cheater in EU and so far has not been disqualifed yet. It is a great sorrow and pity that an operator of that great skills and potential and huge station is spoiling its reputation and future by platantly cheating with cluster. It is a great pity that this has been so widespread in EU and espcially former socialist block of EU but by bringing those issues up we will clean the mess and make contesting a better place. I agree to most Jim (N6TJ) is saying and at the same time urge hime and the others to bring evidence to light and put more peer pressure on the cheaters until CQ Committee will take appropriate action. Trying to lead the way here is my letter about RD3A analysis to another relfector a month ago (this is ES5TV, 73):

****
I have looked at the logs of CQWW CW 2006 EU top 10 SOAB HP stations. It looks like that:

CU2A	6208	155	519
LZ9W	4608	139	474
G4BUO	3718	144	495
TM6X	3539	150	471
S5ØA	3510	160	483
RD3A	3978	164	555
ES5RR	4302	143	477
GD6IA	3904	132	453
TK5EP	4259	118	407
DL3YM	3449	141	439

I compared the worked S&P QSOs and worked S&P MULTS against the cluster spots in the last 20 minutes before the QSO. S&P QSOs are determined as QSOs that were on different frequency compared to previous and next QSO. That means I could only do it with logs that had exact frequencies of QSOs.

Let's look at CU2A, RD3A, ES5RR and OH8X (latter being out of top 10 but in our region)

CU2A worked 134 S&P QSOs and 116 of those were new multipliers.
RD3A worked 515 S&P QSOs and 209 of those were new multipliers.
ES5RR worked 470 S&P QSOs and 166 of those were new multipliers.
OH8X worked 558 S&P QSOs and 249 of those were new multipliers.

Now lets look at how big precentage of the worked multipliers had a recent cluster spot on that frequency and I separate here the periods into 48 hours, last 24 hours of the contest and last 12 hours of the contest.

CU2A
all 48h: 38.8% (38.8% of the mults CU2A worked in the contest as Search and Pounce QSOs had been spotted on that frequency within 20 minutes before the QSO)
last 24h: 37.5%
last 12h: 43.5%

RD3A:
all 48h: 74.6%
last 24h: 85.6%
last 12h: 97.9%

ES5RR
all 48h: 27.1%
last 24h: 19.6%
last 12h: 27.3%

OH8X
all 48h: 44.2%
last 24h: 40.8%
last 12h: 45.5%

So RD3A worked 48 new multipliers in the last 12 hours of the contest and 47 (!!) of them were recently spotted (within 20 minutes). Out of the 209 mults that he worked in the contest 156 were recently spotted. That is way more than any average non-assisted station and is a definite sign of using packet assistance!

It is logical that by the end of the contest operator gets more tired and does not hide cheating any more and starts to jump from spot to spot.

Also, RD3A is using just one radio. No SO2R - he is S&Ping with one radio between CQ-s. And even though he has by far the best multiplier count of all the SOAB stations!

I have more proof for that from his log if necessary and I am very sure in this.

What do you think people of that? I say that he is really lucky that he was not disqualified from CQWW 2006 but I am sure it will happen sooner or later. We have seen those outrageous mult totals in other contests and unfortunately after looking at this log it all became clear.

Maybe RD3A wants to explain why he forgot to claim ASSISTED?

73
tonno
es5tv

p.s. after this letter I was asked if 20 minutes is a good criteria and I took out statistics about 5 minutes also (altough cheaters tend to wait 5-10 minutes at least to hit a spot) and I accompanied it also with statistics about moving mults which are quite selfevident:

****

TV> Anyway, 5 minutes stats are still quite convincing:

TV> ES5RR
TV> all 48h: 10.8%
TV> last 24h: 7.1%
TV> last 12h: 13.6%

TV> RD3A
TV> all 48h: 33.0%
TV> last 24h: 39.4%
TV> last 12h: 41.7%

TV> 73
TV> ES5TV

****

Guess how many mults did RD3A get with asked QSYs! 0 (ZERO!!) 

QSYing mults in CQWW CW 2006:

RD3A: 0 
ES5RR: 18 
CU2A: 40 

73 
es5tv

-----Original Message-----
From: cq-contest-bounces at contesting.com [mailto:cq-contest-bounces at contesting.com] On Behalf Of steve.root at culligan4water.com
Sent: Tuesday, December 11, 2007 1:50 PM
To: hank k8dd; wc1m at msn.com
Cc: cq-contest at contesting.com
Subject: Re: [CQ-Contest] cheating with packet

Exactly! How would you prove you WEREN'T using packet? If we knew what the log checkers were looking for then we could avoid that behavior, but then the cheaters would know too. The whole deal kind of scares me. Potentially you could lose a whole weekend, a top score, and your reputation all in one shot. Gulp...
73 Steve K0SR

n and press F4 to send my call and it puts the call in
>the band map.
>Try a couple of times and don't work him - the call remains marked as
>the unworked color.
>Tune up ..... find a station .... press F4 .... goes in the bandmap
>.... work him and the band map changes the call to worked color.
>I continue up the band working some and some not.
>At some point I go back to the unworked stations in a random order,
>picking and choosing.
>Now will the log will look like I'm chasing spots (were they spotted?
>- I don't know). I tend to do that a lot .....
>Will that look like I'm cheating?
>
>But then I'm not a top ten contender .... at least not from MI.
>
>Interesting!
>
>73 Hank K8DD
>
>
>On Dec 10, 2007 12:53 PM, Dick Green WC1M <wc1m at msn.com> wrote:
>> I don't want to give cheaters any ideas,
>_______________________________________________
>CQ-Contest mailing list
>CQ-Contest at contesting.com
>http://lists.contesting.com/mailman/listinfo/cq-contest
>

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