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As contesters around the world gear up for the 2008 CQ WPX CW Contest later this month, a prominent disqualification in the 2007 WPX CW test is a reminder of what is at stake for those trying to qualify for the 2010 World Radiosport Team Championships in Russia, as eight ops have now been banned from the next WRTC.
Last year, one of the top claimed scores was that of Andy Kazantsev UU0JM, but he was disqualified for using packet spots as UU7J, the first operator publicly DQ'd from a CQ WPX contest since 1998, when RE0A was booked for "excessive unverifiable QSOs."
That DQ not only makes UU0JM ineligible for WPX CW awards in 2008, but also got him kicked out of qualifying for the 2010 WRTC.
"TL/TM (Team Leader/Team Member) disqualified from any listed contests in period from July 2006 will lose the right to apply," states the regulation in Section 8 of the WRTC 2010 rules put together by the Russian sponsors.
In other words, if you get DQ'd from a WRTC qualifying contest, you are out of the 2010 qualifying hunt.
In all, eight operators - many of them WRTC veterans - have now been disqualified from the 2010 WRTC qualifying process. Here is a list of those ops and the contest in which they were disqualified.
UU0JM - 2007 CQ WPX CW DQ
UT5UGR - 2007 IARU DQ
HA1DAC - 2007 IARU DQ
9A9A - 2007 IARU DQ
RD3AF - 2007 EU HF Championships DQ
S56A - 2007 EU HF Championships DQ
F5UTN - 2007 EU HF Championships DQ
RW3QC - 2006 CQWW DX CW DQ
"The organizers should be commended for not ducking the issue but taking the right stand against cheaters," said Alexander Avramov LZ4AX.
It's still not clear if the two Russians already made ineligible could find their way back into the WRTC, because of rules which allow several teams to be chosen by the Russian sponsors.
Regardless, the stakes are high for every contest included in the WRTC process, as their scoring decisions can end up removing a top op from that worldwide competition.
One prominent contest committee member said it has hit home that their work can have a major WRTC impact, reinforcing the belief that they need to be "even more rigorous" in their post-contest reviews.
As for last year's CQ WPX CW DQ, it wasn't without protest, as UU0JM said he deserved more than just a terse notice from the WPX contest committee about the first public WPX CW DQ in ten years.
"I think that if the CQ WPX committee has some questions for one of the participants about his operation in the contest then they have to contact him," Kazantsev told radio-sport.net.
Kazanstev said the late February notice from former CQ WPX Contest Director Steve Merchant K6AW was all he would get.
"Dear Andy," the letter began, "The CQ WPX Committee has determined that your 2007 CQ WPX CW log submission for UU7J is in violation of CQ WPX rule IV.1.(a) - Single Operator, and has been disqualified," wrote Merchant.
"The rule states "one person performs all of the operating and logging functions." The committee has determined that you received assistance from packet spots throughout the contest which is in direct violation of the rules for this category," Merchant added.
"Did they check the logs of other participants regarding this issue?" Kazantsev asked in an email to radio-sport.net. "I didn't get any answer from CQ WPX CW committee."
CQ Magazine contest rules state that if an operator is disqualified twice in a five year period, "he or she will be ineligible for any CQ contest awards for three years."
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He replaces longtime WPX director Steve Merchant K6AW, who needed to "step aside due to business obligations," said a statement from CQ Magazine.
Thompson, who is again in contention for a slot in the 2010 World Radiosport Team Championships in Russia, takes over a pair of contests which are among the most popular in the world.
K5ZD has long been known as a stickler when it comes to contesting ethics, and that view will get a test as he'll have to soon confront the issue of the CW Skimmer, which has roiled the contest waters of late.
Thompson noted recently that the WPX Contest "has no rule regarding the use of the Skimmer," as he urged proponents of the Skimmer to utilize this year's WPX CW for some experiments on how the software performs.
"Would be an interesting data point for this discussion," Thompson wrote in April on the CQ-Contest reflector. "Would also be a good demonstration of how viable running Skimmer during a contest would be."
"Skimmers and software defined radios are way cool and lots of fun," Thompson wrote, "But we need to be careful how we decide to apply them in the context of contest categories."
"If you get calls and frequencies from something other than your own ears and your own tuning of the knob on the radio, then it is Assisted," argued the Massachusetts contester.
It is the second contest director change this year at CQ Magazine, as Andy Blank N2NT took over the CQ 160 contest during a storm of protest about the use of internet low-band chat rooms by some competitors during the CQ 160 CW Contest.
The two men have been working on a new web site for the CQ 160 contest as well, and both seem to lean to making Skimmer use a part of the Assisted category.
"My stance is very similar to K5ZD," Blank told radio-sport.net.
