[CQ-Contest] Skimmer accuracy...

[W0MU Mike Fatchett]

I would hope that a spots log would be one piece of evidence used to 
support some type of cheating accusation.  From my understanding some 
contests are being recorded in real time over a broad spectrum from many 
places around the world.

I would hope that the organizers would would be aware that RBN or any 
spotting for that matter is not perfect.

The organizers will have your log and maybe 4000 others to look at as well.

There are plenty of places RBN and cluster stats can be used to find 
stations with more than one transmitter per band  or more than one 
transmitter on multiple bands ie cqing on 20 and 40 yet claiming SO 
etc.  K1TTT found lots of interesting things when comparing IP addresses 
to spots.

All of these pieces of data together can make it pretty clear what is 
going on.  A few busted spots here and there is nothing to get too 
worried about.

If  you have done nothing wrong then you have nothing to worry about.


Mike W0MU

On 2/20/2013 11:48 AM, Shane Mattson-->K1ZR wrote:
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> One of my main concerns, as mentioned in my original post, is that several skimmers interpreted K0ZR as K1ZR thus making appear as if was operating on Sunday.  If I had been operating on the same band at the same time as K0ZR would I be flagged for duel CQing on the same band?  I appreciate the skimmer technology and have great respect for those responsible for it's development.  From a selfish standpoint I love being spotted and can deal with the massive influx of zero beaters as long I can keep the rate up.  My concern is related more to how the RBN data is used (if at all) by the contest organizers when auditing certain aspects of an entrants operation to help crack down on dishonest participants.  With human induced cluster spots it's more acceptable to discount a bad spot due to someone improperly copying the call and/or fat fingering the entry.  With the skimmer, one may assume that if it detected callsign than it must be a more probable spot.  I think we need to take a closer look at the way in which the spots are represented such as an accuracy or probability index.  I really don't know what the right answer is....many of you donate your valuable time and talent to the contesting community and many of us tend to take what you have developed for granted and provide negative feedback without proposing a solution.  I certainly hope that stations using RBN data take the time to validate a spot by copying the callsign before logging the qso, however I'm certain this isn't happening as frequently as it should.  I'm sure that several stations logged K0ZR as K1ZR last Sunday, and if I had actually been active, running on the band, I may have been passed over by a station that logged my call sign earlier when they had actually worked K0ZR from a skimmer spot.
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> I'm curious to know what percentage of cluster spots represent skimmer vs manually inputted during a 48 hour DX contest.  Does anyone have those metrics?
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> -Shane
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> ----- Original Message -----
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> From: "Michael Adams" <mda at n1en.org>
> To: cq-contest at contesting.com
> Sent: Wednesday, February 20, 2013 12:31:51 AM
> Subject: Re: [CQ-Contest] Skimmer accuracy...
>
> I wonder if there's a way to do that now, with the information already
> being provided.
>
> You have multiple skimmers reporting one or two callsigns at a given
> frequency in a short period of time.  Each skimmer provides information
> about s/n and speed.
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> Rather than have the skimmers opine on the confidence of their information,
> have the loggers/spot collection software parse that data to elect from
> incoming skimmer spots at a given frequency, within a certain period of
> time.   Use some function based on s/n ratios reported and code speed to
> weight the incoming spots.  Best score wins.
>
> Granted, a unique filter is probably sufficient to block the bad
> spots....but it sounds like a fun bit of logic to attempt.
>