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While acknowledging that the "German amateur radio community was overly eager" in helping Team DA0HQ to a first place finish in the 2009 IARU Contest, officials of the Deustcher Amateur Radio Club have told the IARU and ARRL that no "log padding" was used for that victory.
The reponse, written by Dietmar Kasper DL3DXX and Ben Bieske DL5ANT started with their basic conclusion:
"The DA0HQ team has concluded that at no point were any contest rules (IARU HF, ARRL HF or ARRL general rules) or German regulations broken. All contacts in the log are real and are considered legal under both the IARU rules and German regulations."
DARC also sent the ARRL and IARU supporting details in a "large document" in German. That was not made public, as the two page DARC explanation authorized only the "IARU and ARRL to publish this letter in its entirety. No further publication has been authorized."
Numerous hams from around the world forwarded the DARC "Response to AO8HQ Charges" to radio-sport.net.
Among the findings from DARC about the high amount of German uniques was that "many German participants at IARU Field Days...passed around the mike/key to give DA0HQ contacts on several bands."
DARC also wrote that a very small “number of contacts received from German stations that were not legal under German regulations, e.g. using a training call sign in a manner not allowed”.
Still, the DARC letter said those contacts - while maybe illegal in Germany - should be left in the DA0HQ log.
The letter is in response to a highly detailed reivew of the DA0HQ log by the Spanish Union de Radioaficionados Espanoles (URE), which charged that German hams had violated IARU rules on a variety of fronts.
The URE documents, for example, showed individual hams using multiple calls to give DA0HQ hundreds and hundreds of extra contacts, often moving with DA0HQ from band to band, what the Spaniards charged was nothing more than "log padding."
The URE produced two documents, which were sent to the ARRL and IARU officials, which you can read on the internet:
"The ARRL continues to review this matter and will issue a ruling when a conclusion is reached," wrote ARRL Contest Manager Sean Kutzko KX9X, in a statement on his ARRL Contest Blog.
Last month in an email to radio-sport.net, Kutzko seemed to open the door to taking ideas about how best to deal with this DA0HQ vs AO8HQ rules battle in terms of possible rules changes.
"The ARRL was asked to administer the IARU HF Championship by the IARU Administrative Council some years ago," wrote Kutzko. "We welcome suggestions from IARU member-societies on how the event can be improved."
The DARC response said DA0HQ should not be disqualified simply because some German hams did more than they should have to give their German HQ station extra contacts in the 2009 IARU.
"The German amateur radio community was overly eager in assisting DA0HQ to win the contest, and used means that, although legal, were construed by the AO8HQ team of being illegal. DA0HQ had no control over these actions, and did not request them in any way."
"I know of several individuals who called DA0HQ with several calls (their own + the local club call)," wrote Patrick Egloff TK5EP.
"But that can't be considered as cheating, DA0HQ can't be responsible for that," he told radio-sport.net in an email.
That accusation was forcefully rejected by the URE.
"That is completely false," said Salvador Domenech EA5DY, who was part of the AO8HQ team.
"AO8HQ's log has been public for months and has been send to everyone that asked for it. The URE has received absolutely no official request from the DARC asking for that LOG," said Domenech.
"If they had asked, it would have been sent immediately as it has been sent to many other individuals."
For those who want to go through the URE entry, you can find the AO8HQ log here on radio-sport.net.
Domenech was joined by Manolo De Aguilar EA8ZS in saying that it is time for the ARRL to make all logs publicly available on the internet in the IARU contest
"URE encourages an open LOG policy for contests and that is exactly one of URE's proposals for the future of this contest," wrote the two hams.
Only the CQ WW DX SSB & CW contests currently make the logs of competitors available on the internet.
The CQ WPX Contests reserve that right in the rules of the SSB & CW contests, but the next move of uploading logs on to the internet has never been taken.
As for the ARRL, it's not even clear if the issue of "open logs" has been officially considered by the standing committee responsible for ARRL rules changes.
The idea of public logs has been a subject of some of the emails sent by readers to radio-sport.net about this AO8HQ v DA0HQ matter.
"I know there was a big controversy on the CQ Contest reflector regarding open logs," wrote Tom Haavisto VE3CX, but the Canadian contester said it's time for the ARRL to "go with open logs."
"When logs are open," Haavisto wrote, "many other problems can be brought to light for all to see and to judge the evidence for themselves."
Others say the answer is a rules change for the HQ category, which would reduce the points for in-country contacts by an HQ station.
"Make in-country QSO's worth nothing at all, other than a multiplier for the station contacting the HQ entry," wrote Claus Stehlik OE6CLD.
"This would kill two birds with one stone."
"Cheating with callsigns and contacts from the own country would be impossible and it would be more fair for HQ-stations from smaller countries (with a lot less amateurs) who can't fall back on a large pool of 'loyal' local amateurs," said Stehlik.
