Topband: ZK3A .........

[Mike Smith VE9AA]

Cheating goes back a long ways.  It surely predates ham radio by eons.

 

I know personally, when I was on Sable Island in 1996 as CY0AA we got QSL
cards for impossible QSO's.

ie: 6m cards from the Netherlands when I worked NONE.

Another 1 or 2, 160m cards for noontime local.  I tossed them in the
trashbin.

 

Way back when I first got on 6m in the early 1990's I heard a K7 station
working EU when no such path existed.

I came to find out after some months that this stn was using a telephone
remote to a station in Maine, yet he was always giving his CN87 (or whatever
it was) gridsquare.  I saw 160m QSO's being completed on packet radio before
Internet radio chat pages like on4kst.com even existed.

 

Once I figured out  guys were doing all this it sorta ruined the lure of
DXCC for me, thus I do not apply for very many awards and certainly not
DXCC.so you won't see my call on any 6m DXCC list, even though I am probably
the 3rd to achieve it and surely rank at or near the top in Canada nowadays.

 

I've "worked" Italians on 80m and 160m when I am sure it was 2 hours past
sunrise over there and they were 20/9 here in New Brunswick, (no doubt some
kind of Internet Remote)

 

I keep track of all my DXCC's, VUCC's, US States,Zones and whatnot on paper,
in my shack for my eyes only or if any visitor wants to see them.  Nobody
cares if I have 150 DXCC's on 6m , 200 mobile HF dxcc's (combined) or if I
claim to have 378 DXCC's on 160m. (I am just making those numbers up by the
way)

I certainly take it with a grain of salt when I see near-impossible QSO's
like on your list reported.

 

I more-or-less know who a lot of the good guys are and who some of the 'bad'
guys are (TO7A for example) and the good guys get my true respect and the
'bad' guys don't.

 

I know it's hard to stomach, but for the Ukrainian reporter of the 'bad
guys'.try to ignore them.  Their supposed accomplishments do not diminish
your own.

 

Mike VE9AA

 

Mike, Coreen & Corey

Keswick Ridge, NB