[VHFcontesting] VUAC Survey input/ debate

[Paul Decker]

Your analysis is right on target.   Stations who wish to cheat will find a way.  Examining logs and cross referencing them to spots and such is simply a tool that can be used to weed out blatent rules violations. 



The contest operator who hasn't set out to break any rules surely shouldn't be penalized by someone spotting him/her. 

Paul Decker (KG7HF) 


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Kenneth E. Harker" <kenharker at kenharker.com> 
To: "VHF Contesting" <vhfcontesting at contesting.com> 
Sent: Thursday, February 11, 2010 4:32:44 PM GMT -05:00 US/Canada Eastern 
Subject: Re: [VHFcontesting] VUAC Survey input/ debate 

     There are a few misconceptions in this email.  Stations can be spotted 
no matter what category they are in.  An unassisted single operator has 
no control over how often they are spotted by other stations during a 
contest, and being spotted by some other station does not change their 
status to assisted.  Unassisted stations are not allowed to use the 
clusters (web pages, etc.) themselves. 

      How do people cheat using packet/web sites? 

(a) Using spots, but claiming unassisted.  There are ways to detect this 
    by analyzing the logs of the major DX clusters.  Common signs of 
    this form of cheating include an unusually high percentage of QSOs to 
    rare multiplier stations that occur very soon after a cluster spot, 
    logging broken call signs that were spotted that way, etc. 

(b) Self-spotting.  By spotting yourself, you draw more callers.  Most 
    cheaters of this form log into clusters/web sites using bogus call 
    signs to hide their identity.  Most don't realize that their IP 
    addresses are logged and give them away. 

(c) Cheerleading.  The first big incident of this was a Caribbean station 
    in the 2002 ARRL DX contest, when the op enlisted the support of a whole 
    team of spotters from his home contest club to follow him around the 
    bands and spot him constantly.  This is the most insidious form of 
    cheating, as the op himself may never use the cluster system, but 
    relies upon others to cheat on his behalf. 

     And contrary to assertions, many contest sponsors and other individuals 
do examine and understand the cluster/web site data, and there are plenty who 
are passionate to retain the concept of an unassisted single operator class. 
Exposing cheaters does not necessarily mean that the rules need to be 
changed. 
     

On Thu, Feb 11, 2010 at 08:25:33AM -0800, frank bechdoldt wrote: 
> 
> I have reports of : 
> 
> During the contest there were non contestants (formally assisted) spotting non assisted people on some of the web pages.  This was not to help the non assisted people, but to help the formally assisted people get more QSOS and contacts and ultimately QSL cards for working these individuals. In the last contest Non assisted qso numbers doubled while the number of registered participants dropped because of the loss of  an category. 
> 
> The ARRL can not police the web pages.  Unassisted people benefit from the activity of others no matter how they communicate or spot  with each other.  The current rules has their head in the sand on this issue. The only fair way to do it is to acknowledge that all sorts of assistance exists and other than exchanging actual QSO information all classes are allowed to spot or be spotted.  That or police the web pages and all spotted call signs are registered and sent to the ARRL to ensure they are listed as assisted.  A major scandal like this happened one with a CQ HF contest where someone documented unassisted people were being spotted and the QSO times matched the spots. Why expose an ARRL contest to that? 
> 
>   
> 
> k3uhf 
>                                                 
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-- 
Kenneth E. Harker WM5R 
kenharker at kenharker.com 
http://www.kenharker.com/ 

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