[CQ-Contest] Fw: [RRDXA] E73M - I have cheated

[Don Field]

As manager for the IOTA contest, I feel I should comment. We dealt with one
station who repeatedly entered QRP and had scores typically 50% higher than
other QRP entrants. He no longer participates. We were able to do this
because we had corroborating evidence from the country concerned that he was
indeed running substantially more than QRP. But it took a couple of years to
get to the point where we were sure.

So I am not clear how Kostas expected us to identify Low Power entrants who
were using high power (other than one that posted a photo on their website
with linear in full view :-)  ). Contest organisers need to be fed the
necessary information, and need to have evidence - there are too many people
nowadays ready to threaten legal action if their integrity is impugned. That
said, it is getting easier with the RBN network to make comparisons between
stations geographically close, but even then there are big variations in
site, antenna orientation, etc.

That said, it's a pity if anyone stops participating because they feel the
organisers are not coming down hard on such cheats. It comes down to why you
participate in the first place. Is it purely to win? Is it to have fun and
run some pile-ups. Is it (in the case of the IOTA contest) to work some new
islands? There are several possible motivations. Some want to win at all
costs. Some never expect to win, but they actually make these contests work
- without the "participants" (the "also rans", call them what you will) the
serious entrants would have a very thin time indeed!

Don G3XTT
IOTA COntest Manager

On 18 August 2011 17:42, Kostas Stamatis <sv1dpi at otenet.gr> wrote:

> I have lost from others SV cheating this way.... I knew that they had
> amplifiers and sent their log as Low power. What could i do? I was
> expecting
> RSGB (it was a previous iota  contest) to catch them. Unfortunately
> nothing.
> So i stopped participating on iota contest. Which is the next one? I don't
> know if i must stop contesting at all or i should buy a bigger amplifier...
> CQ and ARRL can not understand that if they continue to follow this policy
> their contests will loose popularity? They can not see that Russian,
> Slovenian and others contests gain popularity because the sponsors trying
> hard (and do it) to catch cheaters? This is the most important thing and
> they keep trying to have good public relations and not correct things. Even
> penalties for cheaters are not big. Just my opinion.
>
> 73 kostas SV1DPI
>
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