Well, first off, the RBN uses some form of "robot" software to "read" CW, so unless the CW being sent is nearly perfect, "it" very often gets it wrong.
See an earler post on this subject.
Humin' beans are MUCH better at correctly interpreting hand-sent CW than ANY robot I have ever known.
Secondly, there ARE some people who bootleg calls: many years ago, I caught some jackass calling CQ on 40 CW using my call.
When I answered him, using my call, he never came back to me, funny that.
Still, I would be more inclined to believe it was a "machine error" at RBN in your case since there were so many contacts made.
Ken W7EKB
Sent via the Samsung Galaxy S21 5G, an AT&T 5G smartphone
-------- Original message --------
Date: 1/11/26 07:57 (GMT-08:00)
Subject: [ARC5] I've Been Bootlegged! Call AB5S "Borrowed"
and found something eye-bugging.
Someone is working 30 WPM CW, mostly contests,
Many, many QSOs using my call sign, AB5S.
I did none of them. My station has been down
for months. Take a look at this:
https://tinyurl.com/yhksaffv
I mean- I know AB5S is a good call for CW,
but a polite request might have been in order.
I support CW and might even have designated
him an op if he had asked, but I have no idea
about him. He could be up to no good, or maybe
he's old like me and misread his license,
or who knows?
I asked three of the guys he contacted last night on 80M:
Did he give you a name and QTH? Did he
give any other clues as to where he might be?
We'll see what they say.
The reverse beacon reports the origin point
to be Nevada, Texas, of course. It listens for
the transmissions, but doesn't do any DFing.
Maybe I've been sleep walking??
What would you do?
If found, maybe I should charge him rent?
TNX ES 73 DE Dave (the real) AB5S.""