This weekend brings up my favorite Radiosport Contest, the ARRL November Sweepstakes, CW Edition. It has long been my favorite, because unlike many popular contests, it has a rather difficult exchange which must be copied accurately for points.
Some contests, for example the very popular CQWWDX contest family, have an exchange which is very easy to predict. If you correctly get the callsign by copying it off the air or by clicking a cluster spot, the remainder of the exchange need not be copied. It will be "599 9" from a P40, "599 14" from a DL, or "599 25" from a JA. In fact, most contest logging programs just compute it for you. Get the callsign correctly, you got the points.
Sweepstakes, on the other hand, requires you to copy 4 information fields which cannot be accurately "computed" from the callsign. A serial number, a precedence character, a check number (year first licensed), and your ARRL "section" designator. This somewhat more complicated information exchange obviously rewards a skilled Radioman and penalizes a less skilled Radioman. That's why they call it a contest, right?
But computer programmers are nothing if not clever! Some of the popular contest logging programs now have a feature which allows you to pre-fill your log with the results of previous contests, and there is a thriving exchange of "last years logs" to harvest "what was sent last year". Now when you enter a call in your log, if the fellow was on the air last year, the logging program fills in the precedence, check, and section, and all you have to do is copy the serial number correctly. The rest of the exchange is a pretty good guess to be the same as the previous year.
Some of us feel that this pre-filling dilutes the competitive nature of this contest by taking away the "skill reward" for good copying ability.
So a few have decided to confound the pre-fill by changing our check number from year to year, giving negative reward to those who simply accept "what he sent last year".
The cry goes up in the land "He tricked me! He sent a different check than last year!"