Lessons From the WRTC Adjudication Report

The September 1 release of the WRTC report on final adjudication of the results cannot be ignored. Many have read it and been dismayed. Even more haven't read it but use its existence to publicly lash out at contests, contesters and whatever else irritates them. People are like that.

As a contester, my reaction to the report is mostly disappointment. I would like to say that I was surprised, but not really. Cheating occurs in every human endeavour and radiosport is no different. When they're caught they may or may not acknowledge what they've done and accept the consequences. Some plead innocence forevermore. I took on faith that the extra multipliers won by the original top team were acquired properly. I was wrong.

I am particularly discouraged that a fellow club member (Contest Club Ontario) and someone I know and have spoken to numerous times and won WRTC twice has been exposed as a cheater. Worse, from the interviews summarized in the report he prevaricated when presented with the evidence (more on that later). His disqualification hits close to home.

That of course is Yuri VE3DZ. His and 3 other teams were disqualified. The medals have now been awarded to the true winners of WRTC. It is possible that the 2023 results from Italy may eventually be redone since the same or similar patterns were discovered. If left as is those awards now carry a stain, or at least an asterisk.

As I already said, public comments on public discussions of the report are widespread, ranging from surprise and disappointment to calls for extreme sanctions against the individuals disqualified and against radiosport in general. There is considerably more heat than light. I am not impressed by all the faux outrage. Those in the game have been more guarded in their public comments, perhaps too guarded considering the enormity of what transpired.

There will be consequences though perhaps not what the pitchfork carrying tar and feather crowds are calling for. As bad as it looks I am happy that it was done. Daylight is the best disinfectant and we now have an opportunity to improve radiosport. Despite the naysayers, contests are not going away and are going to grow as a proportion of total activity on HF. Listen to the bands when there isn't a contest and you'll be forced to agree. The silence on the dial between the modest number of QSOs demonstrates non-contest activity is in decline and has been for many years.

To draw a comparison, look at what has happened to cycling. Although doping had been going on for decades it was only more recently that medical science raised the potential imbalance between dopers and non-dopers. There was also a culture that fostered cheating at all levels, including coaching (from youth to elite) and team and sport management as the spectacle of athletes doing the impossible drew audiences and money to the sport. Too few dared say anything since they too had unclean hands and the potential for retribution was high. They risked their careers, livelihoods and reputations by speaking out.

Radiosport has fortunately never fared as badly since there's little money in it, just prestige within a relatively small community. Even so many cheated, and still do, though perhaps not on so big a stage as WRTC. The lack of money and the nature of radio make can make it more difficult to discover cheating than in traditional sports. Many contest sponsors won't or can't take the trouble beyond basic QSO matching. Instead, they've reduce the burden by loosening rules to make certain widespread rules-breaking practices legal, and therefore almost mandatory. For example, we've seen a reduction of unassisted categories and prohibitions against self spotting.

I believe that a lot of cheating in radiosport can be cleaned up just as in cycling and other sports, and without the onerous regime and cost of doping controls in those sports. Technology and techniques now exist that automate a lot of the effort so that more contest sponsors can effectively and quickly identify cheaters. Whether they want to is another matter; many don't appreciate the ugly truth coming to light.

Consider: if you were a contest sponsor would you want to attract the ire of cheaters and their supporters when you publicly expose them? There is risk, to themselves, and others if they mistakenly name the innocent. No method can be foolproof. Some willingly accept the risk but many would rather avoid the matter entirely. They just want everyone to have a few hours of fun on the weekend. I understand that.

Retribution really happens: look at the repeated DQRM and pirating of his calls endured by Bud AA3B because of his good works making CQ WPX a better and cleaner contest. A few don't like clean contests or those that do the cleaning if it means they can't win or are exposed as cheaters. It's an often thankless task.

There will be consequences for contesting from the WRTC rescoring and disqualifications. Although, as the saying goes, daylight is the best disinfectant, the rot is now out in the open and it may be even worse than what the WRTC report details. Despite the stink I believe this can be good for radiosport. Cheaters should know that they are in jeopardy. The vast majority of contesters that compete fairly will, over time, become more confident that competitions are fair.

Backing up, I debated with myself whether to write this article immediately after reading the WRTC report. The content was rich enough that I then reread it, and reread it again. I decided to delay this article and I'm glad that I did. The two weeks that have passed allowed me to more thoroughly digest the report and its implications, and thus refine my views. 

It has also been enlightening to read commentary about the debacle, and then comments on the commentary! People have opinions and want you to know what they think. However there were few gems to be found within the deluge. Hopefully my words add to rather than pollute the discussion.

After these 2 weeks of reflection I have several reactions. Over time I expect to modify, add or subtract so don't take these as my final words on the subject. This is to be expected since there is a lot going on and there are certain to be further developments. I tend not to trust those that have immutable opinions.

• Reputation of radiosport: The many hams that don't love contests or contesters have been handed a weapon, at least in the short term. Ultimately I believe the complaints will subside; a lot of noise signifying nothing. They don't really care about radiosport and will soon move on to FT8 or another subject to vent about.
• Stain by association: Some contesters cheat therefore all contesters cheat. Generalization of this kind mostly comes from the group mentioned in the previous point. Cheating is not a passive infection, and in fact there are few cheaters. Assigning guilt by vague association without evidence is lazy thinking and unfair.
• Burden on hosts: Prospective WRTC hosts, which are already challenging to conduct, may balk at the additional burden of dealing with cheating.
• People talk too much: It's both irritating and amusing that so many with strong opinions about the adjudication have clearly not read the report or failed to understand what it contains. For example, teams were not disqualified for working the suspected pirate(s), yet many believe that they were. Their scores were recalculated after removing those contacts. If this surprises you, you have not read the report.

As you might infer from the tone of my reactions I don't believe that radiosport is in any danger. However, it will be uncomfortable for a while. It will take time and reflection to absorb what happened in Wyboston and to collectively build a better future based on the lessons learned. It's important that we do that. 

This is an opportunity to make radiosport and WRTC better so that competitors and those who cheer for them are assured that competitions are largely fair and that cheaters will be quickly discovered and exposed. WRTC hosts will also need more than the ad hoc individual assistance given to the Wyboston organizing committee this year. It can be done, and I have a few modest suggestions which I'll come to.

I will now turn to the report itself to comment on a few passages that gave me pause. These are cases where I believe the report stopped short, failing to delve into root causes. I am being deliberately unfair since that wasn't the purpose of the report, yet these are important considerations.

"Listening to the recordings of even the disqualified stations shows that they exhibited admirable skill in handling pile-ups and efficiently working stations. Had there been no dubious operation by some participants and outsiders, their results would have been impressive."

This is true but signals a misunderstanding of who cheats and why. Let me give a cycling analogy since there are parallels to be drawn. I am a cyclist though I've never been a competitive athlete, let alone an elite athlete. I have ridden, not raced, with elite athletes, both current (at the time) and retired. Anyone that has taken to the field with elite athletes in a sport that they perform well in will understand what I am about to say.

There is a wide gulf of native physical talent, learned skills and mental fortitude between the good amateur and elite athletes. Watch them at a distance and who among us has not thought at one time or other, "hey, I think I could do that." No, you can't. Really, you just can't. The difference is that great.

Had I to juiced myself to the gills with EPO and steroids I could never have bridged that gap. Cheating would not have done me any good whatsoever. I would have done better among the local cycling heroes but that's about it. Any elite cyclist would still have left me in their dust. It is just that stark. I never would have stood a chance.

It was among the elite cyclists that cheating occurred. At the pinnacle of any sport the differences among the elite competitors are surprisingly small -- you can also see this in the WRTC scores. They're all pushing the limit of human physiology, training and a steely resolve to push themselves to the maximum to outperform or outsmart their fellow competitors. Then the question they or their handlers ask is: what more can I do to win?

So they dope. Since that is seen to work, more do it. Soon almost all are doing it because they must to stay in the game. Their sponsors, trainers and medical teams develop doping into a science and arrange matters, legally or otherwise, that the athletes will not be caught when they are tested. Considering the breadth and depth of the cheating it is surprisingly that the truth took so long to come out, or at least for the truth to be believed.

Contesters may take supplements and do other questionable things to their bodies, but we don't pay attention to that. Maybe it works, though perhaps not to any great degree. It helps to be young of course when it comes to physical stamina and mental agility whether the contest is 4 hours or 48. Cheating then takes a different form. It can be done individually (claiming unworked contacts, excess power or remote receivers) or with the help of others (pirate multipliers, cheerleading, back channel spotting).

As with cycling, I'm a pretty good contester but I'll never be at an elite level. I could do better if I trained more but that wouldn't help. Neither would cheating. It would have to be so extreme to make up for my mediocre ability that any log adjudication software would easily spot it. Cheating, like doping in sports, will never push me to the top of radiosport. Again, it's the elite that gain from cheating, just like what we saw at WRTC.

"MB1I (E77DX and DJ4MX) — Both of its starting frequencies were held by stations connected to its operators."

No cyclist starts their sporting career as a doper. Someone steers them in that direction. In sport it is often the coaches that play that pivotal role. Their first job is to convince the aspiring athlete that they need to dope if they hope to achieve their aspirations. Their young charges are talented, ambitious and impressionable so they come to believe that it is both necessary and acceptable. 

Adult supervision is critical since it is no trivial task to learn dosages, timing, control avoidance and acquire drugs that may require special handling (e.g. refrigeration). The coach benefits since the athlete is their ticket to the big leagues as well.

Several notorious examples come to mind. Since there are few cycling enthusiasts reading this I won't digress to cover that. It is just my way to introduce a discussion about the equivalent to doping in radiosport. Young and talented contesters don't just suddenly begin cheating. They learn from watching others or being schooled by more experienced hands. They are taught how to cheat. 

In the case I excerpted from the report it is easy to guess which of the two is the student and which is the teacher. Braco E77DX is a talented contester of long experience with many successes to his credit. Sven DJ4MX is young and also talented. Of course I could be wrong so I'll leave you to your own thoughts on the matter. 

My concern is that it appears we have the analogous situation to doping in sport: the coach and the aspiring young talent. They are being taught the wrong lesson. I believe that blame should accrue more to one of those parties than the other.

"The operators of all three teams were asked to explain these events. MB1I's two operators admitted what happened and accepted responsibility for the Rule 12.2 violation and the consequences of it. No operator of MB2M or MB2A has admitted any arrangement. Their answers say nothing about why the holding stations acted as they did. One operator said he was unaware of any pre-existing arrangement, but would accept his team's disqualification if a violation were found."

Some learn from their misdeeds and some don't. I am encouraged by the acceptance of responsibility by E77DX and DJ4MX. They were wrong to do what they did but I see a path forward for them. Who among us is without sin? You pay your dues to the community and are then given another chance. Although I don't know either of them I believe they deserve that chance. Calls by some for lifetime bans are extreme and unjustified.

I am less impressed by the reported reactions of the other 4 operators. They have not accepted responsibility for their actions. I therefore believe that they deserve greater sanction. I can't say what that should be, but I think it should be nothing less than disqualification from WRTC 2030. It hurts me to say it since, as already mentioned, I know one of those operators and I have long admired his operating skill and cheered him on.

I need to explain my position, how I can so readily treat the disqualified operators differently. Admission of wrongdoing has long been a requirement for rehabilitation in our societies. For example, the criminal justice system is kinder to those that deal with what the harm they've done or enabled than those who remain in denial. While it is true that some that deny are truly innocent the evidence in these specific WRTC cases is strong.

It is not just about admission of fault. I see two further requirements. One is to explain how the cheating was done, in detail, whether or not they name those that assisted them. The second is to publicly take a stand against cheating and to facilitate procedures to check their future contest entries. Some public discourse from them could serve to discourage others from cheating. Is that enough? I don't know.

As for the others, I really don't care what happens to them. Time alone won't remedy the harm. Their co-conspirators, unknown as they may be, can remain in the shadows but must never believe that they are out of jeopardy. It is likely that their identities will come to be known, even if that is years away.

Enough of the past. It is now time to look to the future. How can we make contesting and WRTC fairer for everyone involved? I have known contesters that have contemplated vying for a spot in a future WRTC and are discouraged by the cheating. They at least need to be reassured that their investment of time and effort would be worthwhile.

But this is not a professional sport like cycling. There is no money to enforce biological passports and other measures to ensure that athletes aren't doping. That's expensive and we have only volunteers to rely on. We need measures that achieve a lot with a modest investment. While I don't have the answers, I do have a few ideas on how we (the broader radiosport community) might go about it. These ideas are not new but bear repeating.

First, cheating in any activity is nigh impossible to eradicate. There will always exist those that will try to game the system to win. Prestige and recognition mean more to them than winning on their own merits. They may also have a network of helpers, as we saw in WRTC. When one person cheats others are sure to follow since they learn that that's how one wins.

Cheaters and the adjudicators are in an arms race, just as in computer security and so many other areas. When one side catches up the other side has to find a new way forward, and they usually do. The trick, I believe, is to outgun the cheaters by enabling innovative methods of scrutinizing contest entries. Particularly those with the highest claimed scores and every WRTC team.

Treat the following recommendations (suggestions?) with caution. I did not attempt to fully evaluate their effectiveness or implications. That is also why the descriptions avoid detail. Caveat emptor.

1) Public logs

All contests should have public logs. Not all will do so for any number of administrative and other reasons, which may be justified. However, non-complying contests should not be used for WRTC qualification. With rapid deadlines for log submittal and rapid public access to the logs anyone can scrutinize the entries, not just the official adjudicators. 

With so many eyes and opportunities for innovative algorithms (most hams are technically adept) cheaters will be outgunned. The challenge will be for the contest sponsors to filter a potentially large number of low quality reports. Experience scrutinizers, which we saw get involved after WRTC 2026, should be favoured.

2) Recordings

Several contests require high scoring entrants to record the contest as heard in their headphones. While those are rarely requested by adjudicators they can be the deciding factor when questions arise. It is a bother but no longer very difficult with several recording applications that can integrated with popular contest loggers.

I've never recorded a contest. I don't place that highly so I've never taken the trouble. For that reason it is no surprise that no adjudicator has ever asked me for one. SDR recordings of all on-air activity exist though not always accessible to the adjudicator or that capture what they need to verify. Too much depends on the SDR owner's station and location and willingness to cooperate. Luckily those were available to those scrutinizing the results from WRTC 2026.

For WRTC candidates in all qualifying contests recordings ought to be mandatory.

3) Pooling of expertise

For good reasons many algorithms and the programs that implement them are kept private. The reason is that having them widely available could reduce their effectiveness. Even among adjudicators for major contest there may be some reticence to share and pool what they have. That can reduce the chance to catch cheaters in contests where the adjudicators can't access the best tools to do so.

Of course this does take place on a limited scale already, though to what extent I'm in no position to say. Doing all we can to catch cheaters early, long before they reach WRTC, will discourage cheating and eliminating from contention those that persist.

Okay, I'm done

I wonder how many have persevered to get this far into the article! There are a lot of words and no pictures to break up the wall of text. If you are still here I have to assume that radiosport is important to you. 

Thank you for reading, and have fun in your next contest no matter how serious or not you choose to be. Above all, don't let the WRTC fracas detract from your own enjoyment of contesting.