[CQ-Contest] The French must be Really Fond of their HQ Station

[Bokverket]

The 2009 IARU is closing, I watch the spots stroll by...  I notice a large 
of stations who manage to hear a station in their own country. Can't tell if 
this is getting more common the previously, but getting more and more 
curious I see a large number of spots of the French HQ station TM0HQ from 
French stations. Certain deep analysts may shed light on these spotters, I 
am sure they are not operators of the station since that would violate rule 
6.5, as we all know. But I do a quick analysis, using the DX Summit's search 
function (anybody can do this in five minutes), and find that

-- about half of the 320--330 spots of TM0HQ are from French stations

-- more than half a dozen of these spotters did not spot any other station 
during the contest, or possibly one or two others, but managed to hear TM0HQ 
on several bands. This even though several seemed to be active spotters of 
DX at other times.

Chers amis Francois, don't feel singled out. I am sure that a complete 
cross-analysis of spots from the same country would yield lots of 
interesting data.

Guys, we got to come up with some simple rule to combat this. Any 
suggestions? Here are a few:

-- Spots from same country discouraged (problems with large countries)?

-- A declaration from participants that "I have not knowingly encouraged 
friends to spot me during the contest"?

-- A letter or email from the contest checkers to spotters asking them for 
an explanation?


Best,

Göran/SM0DRD