[CQ-Contest] The damn robot won

[Pete Smith]

As one of those who worked on improving Skimmer's spotting accuracy 
last summer, after the first pileup competition showed Skimmer 
finishing tied for 67th, winning by 10 QSOs in a competition normally 
settled by one or 2 Qs is sweet vindication.  We didn't do anything 
to speed up how fast Skimmer recognizes calls (in fact we slowed it 
down), concentrating instead on avoiding busted calls.  I guess (but 
don't know) that busted calls are subtracted from good calls to 
arrive at a score, which would explain why last year was so bad.

It would be interesting to hear more from the organizers, and 
also/particularly from the person who drove Skimmer to this win.  I'm 
especially curious which validation level was used - I'm betting on "Paranoid."

73, Pete N4ZR
New Articles Daily - the Contesting Compendium at http://wiki.contesting.com
The World Contest Station Database, updated daily at www.conteststations.com
The Reverse Beacon Network at http://reversebeacon.net