CQ WW Cheating Crackdown To Continue As "Multiple" DQ's Expected In 2009 CQ WW DX CW

By Jamie Dupree NS3T  radio-sport.net 
Posted August 2, 2010

After the CQ WW Contest Committee handed out 7 Red Cards and 4 Yellow Cards for the 2009 CQ WW DX SSB Contest, one member of that panel says that "multiple" disqualifications should again be expected when the final numbers of the 2009 CQ WW CW Contest are published in coming weeks by CQ Magazine.

"Last year there was a concentrated emphasis on checking the Multi-Single category with several disqualifications," said CQ WW Contest Committee advisory member Roger Western G3SXW.

"This year the 'Single-Operator Non-Assisted' category was targeted," Western wrote in a post on the UK-Contest reflector.

"Multiple disqualifications will also appear in the CW results to be published shortly," Western added.

Shedding some rare light on the inner workings of the CQ WW Contest Committee, Western told fellow UK hams that a statistical analysis of logs "confirmed a higher than normal 'hit-rate' matching the timing of DX Cluster spots to QSOs logged."

According to Western, 75 operators were asked to confirm their category - in other words - they were asked whether they should have been entered as "Assisted."

"At that point 29 asked to be reclassified as Assisted. In addition seven stations were disqualified and a further four received yellow cards," G3SXW explained.

Support Remains Strong For CQ WW Crackdown

Once again this past week, emails to radio-sport.net from the contest community were overwhelmingly in favor of this new "get tough" policy from CQ WW on cheating.

"This should be disclosed to all in the Ham Radio community," wrote Athos Morales KP4CB. "And organizations like the ARRL should be taking a more active role in this issue."

"I congratulate CQ for exposing those who cheated or who unknowingly entered the wrong category through ignorance," wrote Jerry Spring VE6TL.

"It is also highly likely that if cheating of this magnitude is taking place in the CQ WW contests, it is also happening in others," Spring added, echoing a call for action by other contests.

"Thus, the ARRL and other major contest organizers should follow CQ’s example."

"Make no mistake, the Committee now has some very powerful tools at its disposal to address this issue and is not afraid to use them," said Jeff Briggs K1ZM/VY2ZM.

"The very best advice participants should take from this is - Don't CHEAT! Clean up your act and play fair - that's the only way," said Briggs.

One interesting item about the 11 given Red or Yellow cards, and the 29 others who were moved to the Assisted category, the vast majority - 32 of 40 - were from CQ Zones 15, 16 and 20.

"Some of these stations no doubt made a simple error on their Cabrillo header file," said Western, "but others deliberately tried to break the rules. "

Why Did The Crackdown Take So Long?

For many years, the CQ WW Contests featured very few public disqualifications, as radio-sport.net has documented, some top scores simply vanished in the final results.

What has changed now - as K1ZM noted above - is both an advance in the computer log checking capabilities of the CQ WW Contest Committee, and the amount of manpower being focused on the matter.

"Why hasn't such action been taken before now? Simple: volunteer time," said G3SXW, a key member of the CQ WW CC.

"This year we were able to harvest the hundreds of man-hours and the computing skills needed to 'prove beyond reasonable doubt' that rules had been broken."