In this week's radio-sport.net newsletter, there is an excellent article on
the current deliberations about how to handle CW Skimmer in contest rules
(http://www.radio-sport.net/skimmer1.htm). According to the article, ARRL
and CQ rule-makers are in contact, and are leaning toward putting Skimmer
in the Assisted category.
I can appreciate their dilemma, but hope that they will think carefully
about this. I am posting this here because I don't know who to write,
specifically, but I know it is likely they will read it here.
Take Sweepstakes and CQWW as examples. The most prestigious category, by
far, is single-op unassisted. If CW Skimmer is banned in this category,
the temptation to cheat will be almost overwhelming. In SS, 50 additional
QSOs over the last 12 hours can make the difference between finishing fifth
or first. In CQWW, an extra 75-100 multipliers would be a similarly huge
advantage.
The problem is that it will be almost impossible to detect a decisive level
of cheating. The statistical methods used to detect packet cheaters simply
won't work.
In SS, I would use Skimmer to fill the bandmaps (in my contest logger) for
all the bands that are open at my QTH. Then I would choose the one with
the most activity, and go either from the bottom down or the top up,
working the stations on the bandmap with my second radio. The pattern of
operation this would produce, for any log-based analysis, would be
indistinguishable from what a good unassisted single-op would do.
CQWW would be a little trickier, because of the importance of
multipliers. A covert Skimmer user would have to be careful not to be too
quick to grab multipliers as soon as they are first skimmed, particularly
if it produces a pattern of band changes versus new mults that will show a
"supernatural" ability to know when a new mult shows up on a given
band. Again, the secret would probably be to change to a given band and
work your way up or down the bandmap in a way that mimics how a non-Skimmer
op would do it.
I can hear some people reacting now - "Ooooh, he's telling people how to
cheat." C'mon, guys, I'm not the sharpest blade in the drawer, and
certainly not the most accomplished, motivated or ingenious
contester. Anything I can think of is probably being mulled over by others
right now, as we wait for the rule-makers' decision(s). I just hope they
won't make a decision that makes the cheating problem worse.
73, Pete N4ZR
"If Skimmers are outlawed, only outlaws will have Skimmers"
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