[SECC] Question about "assisted" vs "unassisted"

[AA4GA]

On Tue, Feb 28, 2017 at 4:53 PM, Arebias Abanathy via SECC <
secc at contesting.com> wrote:


> When I participate in any given contest I never use any spotting or
> clusters at all and have always chosen unassisted however I have also
> looked at some other scores that were very high and wondered if someone
> that uses assistance can be determined by the final scoring system? Anyone
> know the answer?
>

If you're asking "can someone who is entering as unassisted, but is using
spotting on the sly be caught cheating", the answer is "maybe".  The big
contests (ARRL/CQ, probably some others), use fairly sophisticated
log-checking programs.  I think there have even been some folks caught
cheating in the CQWW based on log analysis before.  I think this last fall
the entire CQWW was recorded via a number of SDR receivers and that data
was available to identify rules-breakers.

Another question I have is this; Usually when I am contesting I have
> anywhere from 1 to 3 friends that do not contest but if they know I am
> contesting they will usually stop in and find me, and out of the blue they
> will make a contact with me and ask how it has been going for me. From all
> I know they don't make any other contacts but I go ahead and log them since
> they do so thinking they are helping. If their calls do not show up in any
> other logs do they still allow me to keep those 1 or 2 contacts or are they
> actually just hurting me buy stopping by and keeping me tied up for a
> minute or two?
>

In most contests they're generally not hurting you.  These QSOs would be
flagged as "uniques" in your log by the checking software.  AFAIK, there
are no penalties assessed (yet) by any of the major contest sponsors solely
based on QSOs being with uniques.  That said, the general advice is to have
your friend work a few more folks just to eliminate any question in the log
checkers' minds.  If your friend has the call N4ABC and works only you, and
N4ADC is active in the contest, it's possible you may get dinged.   I think
there *are* some smaller contests that will ding you for uniques, but I
don't know what they are.

73 de Lee
--
Lee Hiers, AA4GA
www.aa4ga.com

Submit your QRP DXCC totals to www.qrpdx.com!
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