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Wrapping up a messy dispute between national radio societies of Spain and Germany over the 2009 IARU HF Championships, the ARRL has decided to reject the protest of the Spanish Union de Radioaficionados Espanoles (URE) against the Deustcher Amateur Radio Club and DA0HQ, while at the same time moving to end awards for the IARU HQ Competition, which officials described as "essentially meaningless."
"URE has provided no evidence, and the ARRL Awards Committee is aware of none, to contradict DARC’s contention that the DA0HQ operators did not solicit contacts in violation of the contest rules," wrote the ARRL's David Patton NN1N, in a statement that has been reproduced in full on the right hand sidebar of this page.
While rejecting the URE protest, the ARRL basically declared that there would be no official winner of the HQ category for 2009.
"Therefore, the ARRL Awards Committee has decided that no certificate will be awarded for the high scoring IARU member society HQ station in the 2009 IARU HF World Championship."
Patton then went one step further, announcing the surprise change which basically ends competition for awards in the HQ category of the IARU HF Championships.
"Effective with the 2010 IARU HF World Championship, no adjudication of HQ station logs will be conducted by the ARRL. A certificate of participation will be awarded to each IARU member society HQ station," Patton wrote.
"DARC has acknowledged that DA0HQ benefited from the fact that German amateurs were “overly eager” to assist" in the effort for a higher score, the ARRL statement said.
"This underscores the principal lesson to be learned from the unfortunate acrimony of the past few months: far too much emphasis has been placed on a competition that is essentially meaningless."
"First, we have allowed too much emphasis to develop on competition between HQ station entries. The special category of HQ stations was intended to raise the visibility of the IARU member-societies among active radio amateurs, and to make the contest more interesting to participants by providing additional multipliers," wrote Patton.
"It was never intended to be a competition for the highest world score. Clearly there can never be a “level playing field” for such competition, nor does it further the objectives of the IARU."
The HQ competition has become much more intense in recent years, as national radio societies in a number of countries have accelerated their efforts, building bigger and bigger operating groups in a bid for victory.
Patton acknowledged that fervor had led to the extended fight between the URE and DARC.
"It is extremely regrettable that the matter has escalated into a distraction from the other issues facing Amateur Radio organizations today," he wrote.
In recent weeks, Spanish hams bombarded the ARRL with emails, demanding a DQ of the DA0HQ entry. The repetitive emails, most of which had the exact same text, clearly aggravated ARRL officials who are also involved with IARU efforts.
"I’m just deleting these stupid form messages," wrote ARRL Chief Executive Officer and IARU Secretary Dave Sumner K1ZZ in reply to one of the missives, which Sumner also copied and sent to radio-sport.net. Sumner later apologized to Spanish hams for his choice of words.
Patton's official statement also made clear that the ARRL and IARU want to close the door on this chapter of the 2009 contest, and move on.
"The ARRL will not engage in further correspondence with regard to the 2009 IARU HF World Championship but welcomes suggestions for improvements for future events."
Reaction in the contest community was one of disgust.
"So the final word on this fiasco is that there is no HQ station contest - well done D-land operators," said Terry Burbidge G4MKP.
"With a little more thought and effort maybe we could screw it up completely and convince the ARRL/IARU to scrap the competition altogether," Burbidge added.
Many groups like the Deustcher Amateur Radio Club have been preparing for their HQ efforts for months already.
In terms of the number of entries, the HQ division was not large - but the groups which participated in that competition often had dozens of people working on the IARU effort.
In 2009, there were 62 entries in the HQ category, from DA0HQ and AO8HQ at the top, to DX1HQ and ZS0HQ at the other end.
The DA0HQ listed the calls of over 30 operators who participated in the contest effort.
The decision brings up the question of "What's Next?" with the stations that have participated in the HQ category.
If those logs aren't checked, and the final scores are not published for the HQ stations, will that ultimately mean those involved will move into other categories?
"Effective with the 2010 IARU HF World Championship, no adjudication of HQ station logs will be conducted by the ARRL," wrote Patton.
"A certificate of participation will be awarded to each IARU member society HQ station."
The ARRL statement then raised another interesting question about contesting, whether a log should be released to the contest community at large.
"Also effective with the 2010 event, by submitting a log the submitter agrees that the log may be made public, at the discretion of the Contest Sponsor."
It wasn't immediately clear if that would just apply to the IARU Contest or to other ARRL contests.
What do you think about the ARRL decision to no longer judge the HQ Category in the IARU Contest?
Will it mean a better IARU HF Contest in the future? Or does it hurt the contest?
Send your opinions to radio-sport.net
A most unfortunate dispute has arisen in connection with the 2009 IARU HF World Championship between participants in two HQ station entries: AO8HQ on behalf of Union de Radioaficionados Espanoles (URE) and DA0HQ on behalf of the Deutscher Amateur Radio Club (DARC). It is extremely regrettable that the matter has escalated into a distraction from the other issues facing Amateur Radio organizations today. As the administrator of the contest on behalf of the IARU, the ARRL regrets that it has contributed to this development in two ways.
First, we have allowed too much emphasis to develop on competition between HQ station entries. The special category of HQ stations was intended to raise the visibility of the IARU member-societies among active radio amateurs, and to make the contest more interesting to participants by providing additional multipliers. It was never intended to be a competition for the highest world score. Clearly there can never be a “level playing field” for such competition, nor does it further the objectives of the IARU.
Second, in adjudicating the 2009 contest results a serious error was made in the initial computation of scores. Many contacts were incorrectly identified as “busted calls” that were not. As a result of this error, when the results were first published AO8HQ was shown as having the highest score when in fact the DA0HQ score, after correction of the computation, is slightly higher. When the corrected results were published, the AO8HQ operators were understandably disappointed. They had believed that, as was the case in 2008, their location in Africa – from which the vast majority of QSOs (including those with Spanish stations in Europe) are worth 5 points – would elevate their score based on about 12,000 QSOs past the scores of all of the other HQ stations, 16 of which had more QSOs than AO8HQ.
The DA0HQ log contains more than 26,000 QSOs. Several thousand of these contacts are with “unique” German call signs – that is, call signs that appear in no (or very few) other logs. Most of these appear to be contacts with individual amateurs who got on the air to work their national team but who were not otherwise participating in the contest. Such contacts are found in every HQ station log, including AO8HQ. They are more numerous in the DA0HQ log than in others because of the large number of German amateurs and because an award is offered (and has been offered for a number of years) to encourage contacts with DA0HQ on both modes and on all six bands. Other member-societies offer similar awards.
Following publication of the corrected, final results URE obtained the DA0HQ log from DARC and conducted a detailed analysis. URE identified hundreds of QSOs by DA0HQ with German stations that it regarded as questionable. The DA0HQ team reviewed this analysis and responded by acknowledging that “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 as being illegal. DA0HQ had no control over these actions, and did not request them in any way.” This included “liberal use of club station calls in addition to personal call signs.”
The “General Rules for All ARRL Contests” apply to the IARU HF World Championship. These rules provide that “An operator may not use more than one call sign from any given location during the contest period.” The General Rules also provide that “A transmitter used to contact one or more stations may not be subsequently used under any other call during the contest period, except for family stations where more than one call has been issued, and then only if the second call sign is used by a different operator. (The intent of this rule is to accommodate family members who must share a rig and to prohibit manufactured or artificial contacts.)”
For the vast majority of QSOs questioned by URE, the most reasonable explanation based on circumstantial evidence is that the operators who made those contacts with DA0HQ were violating one or both of these rules. This is not unique either to DA0HQ or to this year’s event. Excessive “cheerleading” for national teams is practiced in other countries and has been for a number of years. While the operators providing these contacts may have been violating the rules, the DA0HQ operators were not. No penalty can be imposed on the operators who violated the contest rules because they were not competing. Neither can a penalty be imposed on DA0HQ; URE has provided no evidence, and the ARRL Awards Committee is aware of none, to contradict DARC’s contention that the DA0HQ operators did not solicit contacts in violation of the contest rules.
That said, DARC has acknowledged that DA0HQ benefited from the fact that German amateurs were “overly eager” to assist. This underscores the principal lesson to be learned from the unfortunate acrimony of the past few months: far too much emphasis has been placed on a competition that is essentially meaningless. Comparing the results of different national HQ teams, especially across continental boundaries, is comparing apples and oranges (or apples and pears) and leads to behavior that is contrary to the IARU objective of promoting international goodwill and friendship.
Therefore, the ARRL Awards Committee has decided that no certificate will be awarded for the high scoring IARU member society HQ station in the 2009 IARU HF World Championship. A certificate will be awarded to each continental leader, and certificates of appreciation for their participation will be awarded to all HQ stations. Effective with the 2010 IARU HF World Championship, no adjudication of HQ station logs will be conducted by the ARRL. A certificate of participation will be awarded to each IARU member society HQ station. Also effective with the 2010 event, by submitting a log the submitter agrees that the log may be made public, at the discretion of the Contest Sponsor.
We are grateful for the support of the IARU HF World Championship by the operators of all IARU member-society HQ stations. The ARRL will not engage in further correspondence with regard to the 2009 IARU HF World Championship but welcomes suggestions for improvements for future events.
Dave Patton, NN1N
Manager, ARRL Membership and Volunteer Programs
For the ARRL Awards Committee
