http://www.radio-sport.net/cqww07ssb_logs1.htmcq ww scrambles to check log checks; some mistakes acknowledged
by jamie dupree ns3t radio-sport.net
posted july 21, 2008
the second year of "open logs" from the cq world wide dx contests is not only giving contesters another look at how their competitors did, but it is also producing more questions about the log checking process.
and it is bringing some admissions as well from the cq ww contest committee chairman bob coxe k3est, who found some ubn/nil reports from the 2007 cqww ssb publicly challenged.
"he said my log was perfect," said richard king k5na, "and he would try to get a correction in cq magazine if space permits."
king had publicly complained about why his multi-op lost a series of qso's for supposedly violating the rule on band changes by a multi-op.
"we lost a ton of multipliers to this and suffered a large score reduction," king said, telling radio-sport.net that his team was docked for 23 band change violations.
among those trying to get some answers as well was mike tessmer k9nw, who was able to cross-check the logs of some of his busted contacts, and instead found that he had been wrongly penalized.
"i exchanged a couple emails with one of the committee members. they're looking into some issues that seem to have popped up," tessmer told radio-sport.net.
"a few stations logged me as k9nw. they got it wrong, i was hit with the nil," tessmer complained on the cq-contest reflector.
"a few stations logged me as fm9nw. they got it wrong, i was hit with the nil."
others were aggravated by penalties for getting the calls of two stations wrong, un7mmm and jj2cjb.
the trouble began when the two entered their calls incorrectly in their cabrillo file that was submitted to the cqww ssb log robot.
valey tuzhilkin of kazakhstan accidentally added a letter when submitting his log, "callsign: un7mmmm" is what his log shows.
the same error befell seiichirou miki jj2cjb, who put an extra letter on the front of his call, "callsign: jjj2cjb."
unfortunately, that seemed to cost others points, but not so much un7mmm or jj2cjb.
"all people who worked them in the contest are being penalized for "busted calls," said yuri onipko ve3dz.
"the question is - is it fair?"
while it is possible to go through the logs of all the competitors in the cq ww ssb test because of that contest's open log policy, the results of log checks (the so-called ubn/nil) are only made available to the individual station.
a radio-sport.net review of log checking statistics accidentally made available on the internet earlier this month from the cq ww ssb test does not show a massive error rate for either un7mmm or jj2cjb.
while jj2cjb lost 16.6% of his raw score, going from 222,420 down to 185,535, the figures from the cq ww spreadsheet show only 15 bad contacts.
un7mmm had 30 bad qso's, as his score dropped 6.6% from 631,620 to 589,860.
as for the band change violations that plagued the log of king k5na, he provided radio-sport.net with several examples of busted contacts that should never have been struck from his log.
"in the cabrillo log the run station is designated as a "0" (zero) and the multiplier station is a "1" (one)," king said.
qso: 3713 ph 0238 k5na 59 04 fm/k9nw 59 8 1
qso: 3705 ph 0238 k5na 59 04 v47kp 59 8 1
qso: 3719 ph 0239 k5na 59 04 6y1v 59 8 1
qso: 3730 ph 0240 k5na 59 04 v26b 59 8 1
qso: 7231 ph 0246 k5na 59 04 sn6z 59 15 0
qso: 7212 ph 0246 k5na 59 04 hc8n 59 10 0
qso: 7204 ph 0247 k5na 59 04 sx5p 59 20 0
qso: 7281 ph 0249 k5na 59 04 s53f 59 15 0
qso: 3797 ph 0249 k5na 59 04 f6ctt 59 14 1
"at 0238z the mult station switched to 80m working fm/k9nw for the first qso at 0238z. this qso was ok."
"five more qsos were made on 80m and the last of which, f6ctt at 0249z, was flagged as a band change violation," king said.
"there was no band change between the good qsos and the flagged band change violation."
king praised the admission of error by the cq ww contest committee, after several days of grumbling from various quarters.
"i am now a happy camper. i think the cqww committee will do 'what is right.'"
