Though I answered K3UOC/7Z5OO's original piece with a personal message to
him, I have been waiting to see how the issue plays out here before
throwing in my comments to the reflector.
I have participated in the AA Contest for just about as long as it has been
in existence from both here in the USA and also from "the other side" in
Thailand. To my knowledge I have never been disqualified or
"check-logged". Indeed, I had my certificate for the 1996 AADX CW contest
hand-delivered by JA0DAI who was here on a business trip last week.
Apparently unlike some of my contest brethren, I do read the rules of each
contest I enter and comply with them in all respects to the best of my
ability and understanding. I do not expect my contest program (in my case
TR LOG) to be infallible and all-knowing in such cases.
Specifically as to my AA log I have always submitted a printed copy in the
form that the sponsors indicate in their sample log sheet. After the
contest I use TR-LOG's "post-contest" program to break up the log into
separate logs for each band, and then take the resulting band-logs into
WordPerfect 5.1 where a macro that I set up long ago quickly converts the
logs into exactly the format called for in the sponsor's sample log. I
then reconvert the band-logs to ASCII format, print them out, and mail them
in along with the summary sheet.
After spending several hours in the contest, I have never felt that taking
an extra five minutes to put the log into the format specified by the
sponsor was any imposition.
I do fault the AA Contest Committee for, after accepting logs in the CT
format for some years, suddenly changing this practice without warning to
the participants and without requesting changes. But we all sign
statements saying that we recognize that the decisions of the awards
committees in the contests we enter are final, so my comments deal strictly
with the procedure that was used this time and not with the rules as such.
I have always found the AA interesting and enjoyable. This year there
seemed to be a little more "new blood" from Japan than in recent years; at
least my records showed that about one-third of the Japanese stations I
worked this year I had never worked before.
I will continue to participate in the AADX Contest in the future insofar as
I am able to do so.
73, Fred
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