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Not long after sending three CQ WW Contest Committee members to check for cheating among top competitiors in the 2009 CQ WW CW Contest, that same committee is now having an internal debate on the future of the Assisted category, and whether all single operators should just compete against each other, even if they are using cluster spots or CW Skimmer.
It was not immediately clear how serious the discussions may be, but several members of the CQ WW Contest Committee were tight lipped when asked by radio-sport.net about the matter.
One committee member told radio-sport.net that he had given the CQ WW CC his views on the matter, but was not ready to share that publicly.
"As far as I know intensely veiled discussions have taken place on cancelling SO category in CQ WW contests," reports Alexander Teimurazov 4L5A on his contesting blog, as he denounced the idea of one category for single ops.
"If the CQ WW CC is not able to judge the CQ WW contest, they should not start changing the rules," 4L5A said.
"Why cancel the SO category?" he added.
"Please do not make this the death of my contesting career," said Jim Neiger N6TJ in an open letter on the CQ-Contest reflector, arguing against any combined Single-op category.
"Will the CQ CONTEST COMMITTEE open its closed discussions of the fate of Single Operator categories to the public or will we first learn of them when the rules are changed?" demanded Neiger.
This isn't the first major CQ Magazine contest to take a look at the issue, as the director of the CQ WPX Contests, Randy Thompson K5ZD, recently sampled opinions on the idea, which he detailed on his WPX blog.
"The results were relatively consistent across all competitive levels. Opinion is narrowly in favor of keeping SO and SOA as separate categories," wrote Thompson.
The issue is obviously not a new one in the contest community.
Some contests like Russian DX and Worked All Europe moved in recent years to allow the use of CW Skimmer and DX Cluster resources for single operators, meaning the contest organizers and log checkers do not have to spend excessive amounts of time checking for cheaters.
"Those in favor seem to feel that cheating is pervasive and the only way to stop it is by putting everyone into one category," wrote Thompson on his WPX blog.
"It is up to the contest community to apply peer pressure against those who use the Cluster and then enter in the SO category," he added.
The family of CQ contests is by no means in unison on this subject, as the CQ WPX RTTY has no Assisted category, while CQ WW RTTY does separate those single op entries.
The same is true over at the ARRL, where using cluster-type resources puts you into the Multi-op category in contests like IARU, ARRL 10 and NAQP.
For years, that was also the setup in the CQ 160 contest, but that changed in 2009 with the addition of an Assisted category, and was very well received in its first year.
"Of the over 1000 logs submitted, 200 were in the new Assisted category," wrote contest director Andy Blank N2NT in the CQ 160 writeup in CQ Magazine.
When it comes to reviewing un-assisted single op entries, one of the first checks is looking at the possible use of spots for top claimed scores in contests like CQ WW.
"They have algorithms to automatically check the proportion of QSOs that are made within n minutes of a cluster spot appearing," wrote CQ WW Contest Committee advisor Roger Western G3SXW on the UK-Contest reflector.
"As with any aspect of checking 5-6,000 logs there's only so much you can do so this analysis usually happens with the Top Scores," Western added.
"If you are 258th in your category and want to cheat then good luck to you! Perhaps you need a psychiatrist more than a CQWW log-checker!"
What is your opinion? Should there be a separate category for Single Op Assisted? What about combining them to eliminate worries about checking logs for cluster use? Email radio-sport.net with your opinions!
Here is the SSB Top Ten in SOAB High Power:
The appearance of Jim Sullivan W7EJ in second place is notable, because his winning score in 2004 of 20.9 million points is the highest score in the last ten years in CQ WW SSB, since the 1999 record setting victory of Jeff Steinman N5TJ.
That year, Steinman ended up with 25.6 million after log checks, snapping the world record set a year earlier by N6KT at HC8A.
Here are the top claimed scores so far in the Single Operator High Power category:
Trailing EF8M is Andy Blank N2NT, who ran up 11.2 million points from St. Kitts at his V47NT station.
Three operators made the top ten claimed scores in both the SSB and CW contests, as Tom Georgens 8P5A (W2SC), Toni Linden CR2X (OH2UA) and Mike Tessmer K9NW pulled off that trick.
Tessmer's accomplishment may be the most impressive, as he had the 8th best score in SSB from HT2N in Nicaragua, and then traveled to Botswana and finished 9th in CW as A25NW.
World Scores
World Scores
