As often happens in these discussions, different people are responding to
different questions in the same thread (or at least, to the same question
posed in different environments that affect the answer), so it's no wonder
the answers don't agree.
I can see at least three questions here:
1. What should a station in UA9S send? To me, the rules are clear, they
should send zone 16, but of course that is no guarantee for the rest of us
that this is what they will actually do.
2. What should the rest of us log? Again, the answer seems clear - log what
you hear. Even if you think the log checkers are going to ignore what is in
the UA9S's Cabrillo file and penalize you for the wrong zone, how do you
and they know that the UA9S, when he sends 17, isn't operating from a
friend's shack in Novosibirsk, which really is in zone 17? And don't bother
telling me whether the Russian licensing rules would permit him to use his
home call sign - that is not knowledge the contest rules can require us to
have at our fingertips during the contest.
In addition, consider this: Suppose a UA9S station sends zone 17 (rightly
or wrongly doesn't matter), 1000 stations work him, 990 of them log 17 and
you and 9 others log 16. Who do you think is most likely to be penalized
(regardless of what the log checkers said before the contest)? If you log
what you hear and the log checkers do penalize you, almost everyone else
will be treated the same way, so you won't be at a competitive
disadvantage. If you are so sure of what the log checkers will do that you
insist on recording the "correct" zone instead of what the other station
sends, that's your choice, but if this high-risk contrarian strategy goes
wrong you will have only yourself to blame.
3. The third question applies only to multi-ops (including SOA) who are
using the cluster. What zone do you want your software to assume when a
UA9S station is spotted on the cluster? If there is a reasonable chance
that stations in UA9S will be sending a rarer zone than their real zone,
you might want your software to tell you so.
To maximize your chances of getting zone 17 in the log, you might consider
the following strategy:
(a) use a cty.dat file that will make your software announce zone 17 when a
UA9S is spotted on the cluster (that way, if he is indeed sending 17, you
won't miss the mult, and if he is sending 16, it's still a good QSO).
(b) regardless of what the UA9S sends you and regardless of what cty.dat
tells you, put 16 in your log and add a note (Ctrl-N) to record what he
really sent (this is so that your software will assume you still have not
worked zone 17 and will keep on flagging other zone 17 stations as new
mults so you don't miss them either).
(c) after the contest, go through the notes in your contest log and correct
any QSOs you deliberately mis-logged, in order to fool your software, so
your final Cabrillo file records what was actually received.
Am I recommending this strategy? No. When setting the logging programs up
at our multi-op, I might use (a), but I expect the operators will follow
rule 2 - log what they hear. Steps (b) and (c) are much too error-prone.
The KISS rule applies.
My 1.68 cents' worth.
73,
Rich VE3IAY
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