Cheating goes back a long ways. It surely predates ham radio by eons.
I know personally, when I was on Sable Island in 1996 as CY0AA we got QSL cards for impossible QSO's. ie: 6m cards from the Netherlands when I worked NONE. Another 1 or 2, 160m cards for noontime local. I tossed them in the trashbin. Way back when I first got on 6m in the early 1990's I heard a K7 station working EU when no such path existed. I came to find out after some months that this stn was using a telephone remote to a station in Maine, yet he was always giving his CN87 (or whatever it was) gridsquare. I saw 160m QSO's being completed on packet radio before Internet radio chat pages like on4kst.com even existed. Once I figured out guys were doing all this it sorta ruined the lure of DXCC for me, thus I do not apply for very many awards and certainly not DXCC.so you won't see my call on any 6m DXCC list, even though I am probably the 3rd to achieve it and surely rank at or near the top in Canada nowadays. I've "worked" Italians on 80m and 160m when I am sure it was 2 hours past sunrise over there and they were 20/9 here in New Brunswick, (no doubt some kind of Internet Remote) I keep track of all my DXCC's, VUCC's, US States,Zones and whatnot on paper, in my shack for my eyes only or if any visitor wants to see them. Nobody cares if I have 150 DXCC's on 6m , 200 mobile HF dxcc's (combined) or if I claim to have 378 DXCC's on 160m. (I am just making those numbers up by the way) I certainly take it with a grain of salt when I see near-impossible QSO's like on your list reported. I more-or-less know who a lot of the good guys are and who some of the 'bad' guys are (TO7A for example) and the good guys get my true respect and the 'bad' guys don't. I know it's hard to stomach, but for the Ukrainian reporter of the 'bad guys'.try to ignore them. Their supposed accomplishments do not diminish your own. Mike VE9AA Mike, Coreen & Corey Keswick Ridge, NB _________________ Searchable Archives: http://www.contesting.com/_topband - Topband Reflector