[SECC] GQP log checking and log submission

[John T. Laney, III]

Hello guys:  I don't want to cause any trouble for the clubs or the log
checkers, but you are wrong if you think that people won't cheat if you
give them the chance.  I wouldn't have believed it myself, but in the
years that I checked the logs for the GQP, I found at least three
instances of deliberate, intentional falsification of the logs.  One was
a Georgia ham who skipped a bunch of numbers every time he took time off
(for dinner, etc) and filled those numbers in with made-up contacts
after the contest was over.  I had proof by way of written replies from
a number of the claimed contacts that they had not been made.  Including
one from W2KAT who reported that his station was not on the air then
since he was in Antarctica during the GQP.  The Ga. ham threatened to
sue me, but didn't.  He has since disappeared from the ham scene.  The
sad thing is that he would have been the winner for GA anyway.  He had
already won(?) several other contests and appeared to be a good op.

There were two out-of-state entries that were verifiably false.  One was
a WA3, who made some contacts, but made up most of them, probably from
the call book.  He sent in a log bragging on Ga stations for their
activity.  But, it took only a quick perusal of the claimed contacts to
find some that appeared bogus and a check with the hams involved proved
it to be correct.  I remember that he claimed a CW contact with Alva
Culpepper, K4BNQ in Macon, who was the leading Ga proponent at that time
of a code-free HF license and who never worked CW.  The other was a 2
who added about a half dozen bogus QSOs at the end of an otherwise good
log. It appeared that he took them from his QSL file of old GA contact. 
They were even in alphabetical order.

You cannot guard against such cheating by having only summary sheets
submitted.  If it is clear that logs are not being checked at all (the
final scores are the same as the claimed scores), future entrants will
figure it out and will not be careful with their logs and some will even
cheat.  The best known example of this is the CQ WPX contest which
became notorious for not checking logs up until the last few years.  A
lot of people had stopped entering that contest for that reason.

Since a piece of paper and maybe a favorable write up in a contest
summary is a very unimportant thing in the whole of life's experiences,
one shudders to think what those cheaters might do (or actually did) in
"real life."  W9WNV was one of the best operators ever to operate a
contest.  I was constantly amazed how he managed to call me wherever I
was in the world in a contest while managing his own pileups.  But he
cheated.  He didn't observe the "banned list" of the Korean government
in setting his CQWW records from HL9KH.  He ran illegal high power in
Korea (the power limit was 150 watts at that time).  Later on, he was
convicted of a serious crime and serves in prison today.  I do believe
that people can change and that not everyone who cheats in a contest
will cheat in the important things of life, but there is some
correlation.

I didn't find the logging and submission requirements much of a problem.
I use NA and the special GQP files that we have for it.  I used it with
a different log for each county of the 36 (?) that Dick and I operated
from mobile in 1999.  The only time consuming thing was figuring the
multipliers from all the counties put together for the submission of an
over-all summary sheet.  That was the only thing that NA wouldn't do for
me.  For a one-county station, it will do it all.  And the latest
versions have the Cabrillo log format (CALL.LOG), but still have the
older format that I like to print out and keep for a paper copy of the
log to answer single QSL requests from (FILE.PRN).  K4JRB says that the
.PRN file will satisfy his requirements for CQ160 for the time being.  

I'd think that due to the ARRL requiring the Cabrillo format for contest
logs beginning with Nov SS this year, all of the contest logging
programs that haven't gone out of business will be bringing out versions
that will comply and will do so in the immediate future. NA and TR
already do so.

73, 

John, K4BAI.

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