Anatomy of a Yellow Card: Team W2RE Says Faulty Lockout to Blame for Rules Violations

By Jamie Dupree NS3T  radio-sport.net 
Posted September 27, 2011

When the results of the 2010 CQ WW DX CW Contest were released earlier this year, the CQ WW Contest Committee also announced a series of Red and Yellow cards, penalties issued against certain entries for rules violations, which included the first American team to be publicly rapped.

"Basically, we were NOT cheating," said Lee Imber WW2DX in an email to radio-sport.net to explain his side of the story, arguing that "it was an honest mistake."

The CQ WW Contest Committee issued a Yellow Card to Team W2RE for "only one transmitter and one band permitted during any 10 minute period by Multi-Single entries."

WW2DX asked that radio-sport.net print his team's explanation of what happened and here is that communication:

I was a part of that operation and want you to know that this (Yellow Card) happened due to an honest mistake - not because we were cheating.

Once we were notified by the findings from the contest committee we immediately drove the 2 hours to the contest QTH to investigate the problem. What we found was faulty station design. We found that even though the N1MM network lockout we were using was operating correctly we discovered that the paddle that was hooked into the 2nd radio overrode the network lockout. Anytime an operator manually reached for the key, presumedly to ask for a repeat or to resend a report at a slower speed this was the fault.

Since we are honest folks here in SE New York we immediately wrote to K5ZD and asked that our CQ WPX SSB score of 21.5 MEG be made a check log - as we felt it possible that in that contest as well this same situation may have occurred with a foot switch. This request was granted and, painful as it was to lose a top MS score, we felt our integrity was more important than posting a winning score which, in the end, was also plagued by the faulty interlock.

I am writing this to you today in the hopes that you will be so kind as to add a SIDEBAR to your recent article - in order to explain what happened to us in CQWW CW 2010 and what we subsequently did about it. We are working now to remedy and bulletproof our interlock system for CQWW SSB 2011 and we feel confident that this honest mistake will never be repeated. We try very hard to play 100% by the rules at Team W2RE and I want the contest community to be aware of the facts in this matter.

Basically, we were NOT cheating - it was an honest mistake - and we apologize to all our friends for what happened - and we are doing something about it. We ask that in the interest of fairness that you please append this letter to your website article.

Many thanks and 73,

Lee WW2DX and the W2RE Team