[RTTY] Disturbing Observations

Mon Jun 14 13:33:05 PDT 2010

All this brings up some good (or bad) points but also invites dangerous false speculation and extrapolation.

Sure, when you actually find a station with two signals on the band consistently calling CQ together or with no attempt to restrict double transmissions, it's a clear case.  The evidence is plain enough...sometimes the circumstances arent that plain.

For instance, I would be willing to bet that the self-spotting issues being brought up here are nothing more than operator errors using a sophisticated logging program, such as N1MM, that has a setting wrong.  Just about every contest, someone will fire it up in a mode that spots everything they work.  They mean well...they want to help out by donating info to the packet clusters.  However, this is INTENDED to spot everything that they work only WHILE S&P, but it gets messed up all the time, and spots while running as well.
It's incredibly annoying, but its an honest mistake.

Things like this happen when you add more and more technology that is more sophisticated than the people using it!  N1MM logging software is certainly in that boat.  It's very powerful and flexible but also very easy to screw something up.

My guess is that the various forms of cheating have been going on for quite some time, it's just getting harder to hide it with electronic log checking getting more sophisticated all the time...and more people are getting caught.  This is certainly not confined to SSB/CW contesting and I'd be surprised if it isnt MORE prevalent in smaller contests such as digital/RTTY contests where there is generally less scrutiny of the logs.  The players are still human and there will be a few that try to "break the law" if they think they can get away with it.

...and of course, this discussion will reignite the anti-SO2R crowd which continues to try and propagate the false notion that SO2R needs a separate class or something.  As I've pointed out before, SO2R-type operation has been and is currently accepted by the world as a normal part of the "single-op" category description in all major contests, which limits the number of signals that can be transmitted at once without restricting the radio count.  One of the reasons behind this is that most anything else  would be an unenforceable rule and I think most people recognize that creating rules that cant or wont be enforced is worse than no rule at all.

If you want to be separated from the SOnR operations, you need to take a cue from the WPX contest and petition the sponsors to create a new SO Limited category to go along with the "Tribander and Wires" and other special subgroups.

People call SO2R guys "band hogs" and whatnot...it's mostly nonsense as far as RTTY goes.  The only band that gets clogged up on RTTY is 20M and perhaps 40M.  Stations doing multi's and SO2R actually generate more activity on lesser used bands, which encourages everybody else to spread out and use something other than 20M!  If they only had one radio, they'd still be on 20M pushing their F1 key with everyone else and there would be even less reason for everyone else to get off 20M!

OK, I'm ducking for cover now...

Ty K3MM

Jun 14, 2010 08:25:59 AM, keepwalking188 at yahoo.com wrote:

>Don,
>
>It's human nature to push things and it's only the social pressure that 
>
>keeps our animal side in check. After looking at some of the IARU HQ 
>discussions, wow, what nonsense.
>
>After all, what's a win if you cheated to do it? And the excuse? "The 
>
>other guy is cheating so I may as well." That's not the way to go.
>
>Your idea is better. "Pour sunshine on the violator" - social sunshine 
>is 
>the best disinfectant! Hope others are willing to step up as well.
>
>73/jeff/ac0c
>
>
>--------------------------------------------------
>From: "Don Hill AA5AU" <aa5au at bellsouth.net>
>Sent: Monday, June 14, 2010 2:04 PM
>To: <rtty at contesting.com>
>Subject: [RTTY] Disturbing Observations
>
>> As I tuned around the bands during the last 8 hour segment, I found a USA 
>
>> SO2R station transmitting on both 15 and 20 meters at the
>> same time in a blatant violation of the rules. It wasn't a case of 
>
>> someone just making a mistake. I watched for 15-20 minutes and
>> simply couldn't believe what I was seeing. I did let them know he 
>or they 
>> were breaking the rules and he/they immediately stopped.
>> But it made me mad.
>>
>> Then a little while longer, I saw my call pop up on the bandmap on 20 
>> meters even though I was S&P on that band. At first I thought
>> someone made a mistake. Then I looked at the origin of the spot and 
>> realized it was a station I had just worked. This operator
>> spotted me on his run frequency. Although that is not a direct violation 
>
>> of the rules, it still irked me.
>>
>> I don't know how much of this goes on, but it needs to stop. The next 
>
>> time I catch someone transmitting two signals at the same
>> time, I will call them out publicly on it. I realize there will be 
>> instances of stations transmitting at the same time (Multi-2,
>> Multi-Multi). But the rules of the DLDC were specific:
>>
>> 4. GENERAL for all categories:
>>
>> (e) Only one transmitted signal is permitted at any time.
>>
>> As far as spotting other stations on one's run frequency, it's 
>just the 
>> wrong thing to do. There have been times, such as when I
>> was on ten meters, when I wanted to spot someone on my run frequency just 
>
>> to let everyone else know the band was open. But I
>> didn't. So don't get caught up in it.
>>
>> There's been a lot of cheating going on in CW and SSB contests and 
>it's 
>> apparent there is cheating on RTTY too. I'm not sure what
>> we can do about it other than make it a point to let people know we aren't 
>
>> going to tolerate it. I'm definitely not going to
>> tolerate it.
>>
>> 73, Don AA5AU
>> http://www.aa5au.com
>> http://www.rttycontesting.com
>>
>> _______________________________________________
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>> 
>
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