[Moon] ARRL EME Contest

Tue Apr 15 20:23:54 CEST 2008

It is very sad indeed to see the systematic cheating by claimed QSO's which
have never been made, diluting all toplists and firsts between countries,
DXCC diplomas have definitely lost their value since cheating has become
integrated in the software used and chat rooms replaced the need for having
the moon above horizon and still claiming QSO's.
I did not send in a log to ARRL and I will not in the future. The lists of
firsts between countries is obsolete because it lists QSO0's between files
on harddisks rather than travelled information off the moon.
Initial lists did not do better and are of no value any more. It seems to me
we are playing tennis without a net because some feel that it is too hard to
play tennis with a net. Everything is allowed and thus the thrill of EME is
gone. So Sad!!!!
You don’t need to be a Nobel-Price winner to realize the damage brought to
EME by all the sick ways of cheating up on the various lists under the myth
of being smarter than the rest of us.
73 HB9BBD

-----Ursprüngliche Nachricht-----
Von: moon-bounces at moonbounce.info [mailto:moon-bounces at moonbounce.info] Im
Auftrag von Peter Sundberg
Gesendet: Dienstag, 15. April 2008 18:57
An: moon at moonbounce.info
Betreff: [Moon] ARRL EME Contest

I can remember when the ARRL EME Competition was the highlight of the year
for moonbouncers. The rules were clear, and easy to understand. Reading the
results and comments in QST was something to look forward to, and
achievements were never questioned, insted they encouraged us mere mortals
to push on forward, and improve our stations and operating practices.

Not so any more... the way the contest is handled is a total insult to
those participating, especially those who praise fair game and contesting. 

Why have we seen this transformation from a highly respected event to an
embarrassing soap opera? 

Well, the reason is clear, it's because of the constant maneuvering with
new rules, and the total lack of enforcement of rules.

A bit of background information:

After the 2006 EME contest I sent a formal protest to the contest committee
regarding stations who openly violated the rules. I also forwarded a number
of logger and cluster extracts to show the committee what had been going
on, and pinpointed the violations in these documents. This was also the
sole reason for me entering "Assisted" category that year, as I had been
monitoring loggers and clusters (of no use to me as a CW operator).

A while later, I was sent the full contest database, with the request to
help identify the stations who were violating the rules. I did so, and sent
the information back to the ARRL, hoping for a bit of correspondence
regarding this issue. I received an acknowledgement that they had received
the information.

When the results were finally published, I discovered that a number of
stations had been moved to "Check Log", instead of being disqualified. As
we all know, K1JT has been telling us that HE (and only he) examined the
contest results, in search for violations of the rules. This he said, was
in the interest of keeping it a fair game, and to enforce the rules.

Well, the only thing he did was to save his friends from the embarrassment
of being disqualified, so it is clear that some officials at the ARRL are
not at all interested in a fair game.

Why bring this up at this point then? 

Well, only to point at the fact that since 2006 the same person responsible
for the above blocking of rule enforcement was involved in yet another
revision of the contest rules, namely in 2007. 

Too eager to share the thoughts with the community, K1JT presented the new
rules even before the ARRL had them on their website. The analyzis of the
rules presented together with (one) version of the results is clear, and on
the ARRL webpage we can read the following statemend from Ward N0AX:

"144 categories, to be exact. Only 28 categories had entries from a total
of 184 entries, so perhaps this pie is being sliced a bit too narrowly?"

So, is there a reason for creating so many categories..?? Of course there
is, everything is now so sliced up that a disqualification should not be an
issue any more, as no one has the ability to understand the rules any more.
Let alone send a formal protest..

Am I wrong in drawing these conclusisons...?  

Don't think so.. not even the ARRL have been able to present the correct
results, despit many attempts. And the results published in QST Magazine
still stands as the only printed results, and they will probably never be
corrected. Why embarrass even more people by putting it right?

My "verdict" over all of this is, that when we let one man dominate EME,
and decide for all others, this is what to expect! 

These actions are not possible to sweep under the carpet, because the
contest is ruined for all future as it seems now. There will still be
people entering the contest, of course, but it is not a contest any more.
It is a joke of a contest, serving no purpose other than acting as an
activity enhancer. 

This is good however, we need stations populating our bands. But the so
called records set under present circumstances have absolutely NO value,
and are not to be compared to the records set when the ARRL EME Competition
was a true contest, based on a fair game for everyone.

Let's not be fooled into thinking something else.

CW is King!

73 de Peter SM2CEW
www.sm2cew.com
http://blog.sm2cew.com

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