[CQ-Contest] Did I cheat in the NAQP CW?

[Tree]

Art, K3KU asks:

>  1.  If it's OK to use "call history" files, is it OK to look up states in
> the (on-line) callbook.  Why should one list of historical data be OK, and
> the other not?  (I did NOT look up anybody's state or name in the 'Test.)

This feels like the slippery slope concept to me.  

"Call history files" (aka SCP) is a tool most people are okay using.  Some
logging software (mine included) allows you to create databases with exchange
information from previous contests - or other people's logs.  

How you use that information is where the tricky part comes in.

Using a database or callbook AFTER the contest is generally considered a bad
thing.  The point of the radio contest is to exchange information over the
air - not to see who can look up the most information from a callbook or
qrz.com.

Something I see occasionally that really bothers me - are people who bust 
callsigns and then end up with a "correct" exchange that obviously comes
from a callbook.  Recent examples come from guys who bust a callsign in the
Stew Perry contest.

Here is an example:

K7RAT is worked by N6TR - but he busted the callsign to KL7RA.  KL7RA was
not on for the contest - and instead of showing CN85 for the grid, N6TR
looks KL7RA up on QRZ.COM and puts BP40 in the log for the grid.

People actually do this - and it sure makes us log checkers wonder.  These
kind of things stick out like sore thumbs in any complete log checking
process.  When K7RAT's log shows a QSO for N6TR - and when I look in N6TR's
log, I find a QSO with a unique callsign at the same time - I know something 
is fishy.

Tree