[CQ-Contest] CHEATERS

Fri Jul 20 15:56:11 PDT 2012

As a follow-up  to N6TR's encouragement for further thought and discussion:

Some of us have complained to contest managers, for years, about the 
prolific magnitude of cheating in their contests, with minimal effect, 
leading some to speculate that some managers couldn't care less that their 
respective contest results are tainted.  And contrary to what some might 
think, I know that many on these committees work hard and with limited 
resources and tools, do the best they can do.  But contest adjudication 
flows from the top down.

  And I'm not speaking of those less than honest, shall we say,  obviously 
not competing on the world stage and who from time-to-time sneak a peak at 
packet.  And that in itself is oft wondrous to observe:  my call is busted 
on packet, and I then see in my UBN analysis,  a number of claimed 
non-assisted who also somehow mysteriously busted my call in the same 
manner.  I'll leave it to the reader to speculate how these guys must've 
pulled this one off.

Rather, I'm speaking of those competing for the top scores.  They obviously 
don't care if their score is dishonest.  They "win".  The contest managers 
don't/can't check them.  Ten years from now,  they will still have their No. 
1 Trophy, no manner how achieved.  And we know who they are.  And they 
simply don't care.  Period.  End of story.

 I wrote here, a few years ago, that based upon the current state of 
affairs, our beloved contests would come down to what I labeled The Battle 
of the Cheaters..........  So far, so good.  Or, bad.

Of course there are always the non-believers, which is obviously their 
unalienable right.........

And some of us didn't just fall off the turnip truck, either..  And so very 
many memories and anecdotes to relate:

Like in 1994 CQ WW SSB.  I'm SB15 @ ZD8Z.  With a half hour to go Sunday 
night, I knew I was already well past the world record,  bored with 15,  I 
stupidly go over to 40 meters to give out the double mult.
How did so many know to call me on 7180 since I announced it only once?

Like in 2002 ARRL 10.  Band is wall to wall @ ZD8Z.   I  QSY way up to 
almost 29 megs.  Within 5 seconds, a world class pile-up.  How intuitive for 
so many "non-assisted" to look where no man ventures...............

Like UU7J blasting into ZD8Z an easy S9 + 20 on 160.  But do you think I 
could even solicit a ?? from him??  Nope; he must have an S9+  noise level. 
But  then who needs your run-of-the-mill double mult in Zone 36??  Only 
problem with the rest of that story is when I operated T77C in the 2000 
WRTC, this UU7J guy was at least 10 KHz wide on 20 CW up the hill in San 
Marino,  (1) further amazing me as to how anyone can operate in central 
Europe on a regular basis and (2) having checked Zone 15 off my 40 zones 
list vowing to never return again, and (3) wondering how close UU7J is to 
anyone's legal power?

Like at WRTC 2000 in Bled, chatting with one of the 9A's, who shared with me 
that "you know, Jim, here in Croatia most of us are running Henry 8K's" . 
Hmmm, how nice is that, I wondered?

And like seeing first-hand some of these amplifiers of world competitive 
stations.  Not exactly a pair of 807's.  When asked "why so big" and how 
much are you really running?  The reply, with a smile, usually goes "only 
1500 watts, I like to make sure I don't over-drive the tubes and cause 
splatter".   And some take this step in another direction (literally): 
multiple antennas in multiple directions, and 1500 watts into each antenna. 
Oh, the wonders of technology.............

Last week, I was fortunate to have dinner in Washington, D.C. with my 
friend of many years, and contests, Scott Redd, K0DQ.  As we could best 
recall, Scott and I started competing against one another when we were both 
in our 20's, that is - a year or two ago..............  Being the humble 
Type B personalities that we both are, we then commenced to tally up our 
respective single operator World No. 1's, and concluded that we  each have 
about twenty.  And we agreed, the World single-operator all band CW is the 
standard by which all should be compared.  CQ WPX    ARRL DX   CQ WW, not 
necessarily in that order.  But it ought to be single operators vs single 
operators, not single vs. multi-operators.  Sounds reasonable to me. 
Scotty asked me if I was ever going to return to SO/AB for the CQ WW CW?  I 
pretty well answered him by saying "when RD3AF goes to EF8M without his 
'technical advisor'  RZ3AZ (who I've been told is an even better operator)".

So many  stories to tell......................

Vy 73,

Jim Neiger   N6TJ

--------------------------------------------------
From: "Tree" <tree at kkn.net>
Sent: Wednesday, July 18, 2012 4:43 PM
To: <cq-contest at contesting.com>
Subject: [CQ-Contest] Follow-up on Cheaters

> Thanks for all the advice and ideas (both on the list and off).
>
> Sorry - I will not name names here on this forum.  However, here is what I
> am doing so you are aware:
>
> - The sponsor (the ARRL) has been notified of what we heard - and they are
> working the issue to collect more data.
> - Once they have good data - AND the log is submitted - then they can
> present the data to the offending station and ask for an explanation.
>
> Obviously - if someone submits their log as a check log (or not at all) -
> there is nothing wrong with what they are doing (at least form the
> perspective of the contest rules).  So - in a way - this is peer pressure.
> Someone out there did this - they probably know they did it - and they
> know that the ARRL knows who they are.  Perhaps they will think twice 
> about
> how they submit their log.  Also - by not naming names - if there are two
> or more people out there who did this - all of them will go thought this
> thought exercise.
>
> It is possible that this was a "one off mistake" - and with an appropriate
> explanation - perhaps the situation can be salvaged.  However, we don't
> know that yet.
>
> This whole situation has been a bit of an eye opener for me.  It is crazy
> how big some of these multi-singles have gotten.  Harry, RA3AUU, sent me a
> video of a multi-single operation in the WPX CW contest at P33W that is on
> you tube.  It shows what appears to be a functioning interlock - so the
> station is legal per the contest rules - but instead of this being a
> multi-single - there are four radios being used at the same time by four
> operators.  This is likely very different from what most people think
> multi-single is.  I can understand the confusion since the words "single
> transmitter" are used in the category.  Of course - the CQ contests allow 
> a
> multiplier radio - so perhaps this is only twice as big as you might
> expect.
>
> I applaud Harry on his engineering skills - and certainly he has figured
> out how to get the most points within the rules.  I understand there are a
> number of other big stations like this operating the contest.  However, it
> is clear to me that this isn't what most of the other multi-singles look
> like.  So - we end up with two kinds of multi-singles...  the ones that 
> can
> pull off this type of operation - and the rest of us who have one radio 
> and
> two or three people who want to operate the contest.  The difference in 
> the
> results speak for themselves if you look at the multi-single scores.
>
> I don't know if there is anything that should be done about this.
> Certainly it is interesting to see how far these things can go and stay
> within the rules.  However, at some point, we might want to think about 
> the
> effect this has overall on the category and if it discourages too many
> people from participating in the contest because they have no hope of 
> being
> competitive with just a "single" transmitter.  Personally - I think it
> would be better to get this back to a more simple configuration and open 
> up
> the category to more people.  It's pretty easy to see in the logs when two
> frequencies are being used to CQ since frequency information is provided 
> in
> a large percentage of the logs these days.  Perhaps that is something that
> could be regulated.  I find that we have enough QRM on the bands without
> having stations taking up two frequencies.
>
> Food for thought and discussion.
>
> Tree N6TR
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