Interesting, this is a very interesting question. Back in the older days,
before log checking software was checking all of our scores, many stations
had the mentality of: if you think its right, log it. At that time in
history, this proved to be the thing to do, most bad exchanges, precedents,
sections, etc were NOT caught and the scores tended to stand as submitted.
Now, as of right now, I just checked our SSB SS log from last year (2006)
for K2NNY and found the following:
We submitted 1480 QSO's and a score of 236,800 points.
After the log checking software got finished, we got credit for
1407 QSO's and 225,120 Points. A loss of 73 QSO's and 11,680 Points.
This is quite a penalty for not having the correct info in the logs. If you
bust a call, you lose that call plus a penalty of 1 qso for each busted
call. We ended up with 20 busted calls, losing 40 qso's, had 26 exchange
errors and 6 bad numbers.
The bottom line is this, and all of the K2NNY team is in total agreement -
NO GUESSING, if you do not have the full exchange - DO NOT LOG IT! This
seems extreme, and some guys will not get NNY in their log, but the idea of
the exchange is to get it right, all of it.
If we guess, we are not doing the other station, any favors, he/she may copy
our information with no problems at all, but we need to copy all of their
info to make it a legitimate QSO.
We at K2NNY will go out of our way, literally to put each and every station
in the log, we may not be able to do it, but we give it the old college try,
we want your QSO too!!!!!!!
One of our faults is messing up a o with a 0 in a call sign, we hope we have
fixed that by using a slashed font for the 0 in the software.
We want to be as accurate as possible with our logs, but you know the side
splatter, qrm, qrn, lightening crashes, tuner uppers, guys who jump on your
frequency and call CQ while you are digging out a weak one, deliberately qrm
you, have different accents of the English language, etc all seem to be
stacked against us, but it is a contest, we will be there and we will have
fun !!!!
Hope to put you in the log.
Paul K2DB @ K2NNY
p.s. oh yeh, it is not necessary to take the fall for someone else. And
don't assume the log checkers will not find your error, they WILL find it.
Dennis, whatever you send us when we work you will go in the log exactly as
you sent it, if you send K2SX, it gets logged as K2SX, if you send K2SX/4,
that's what we will log. Have fun and work us for NNY.
-----Original Message-----
From: Dennis McAlpine [mailto:dbmcalpine@earthlink.net]
Sent: Wednesday, November 14, 2007 10:32 AM
To: cq-contest
Subject: [CQ-Contest] A Contester's Dilemma,or when is it necessary to take
the fall for someone else?
Since moving to SC I have noticed that it is generally considered a pretty
rare multiplier where states or sections are used as mults, e.g. SS, ARRL
DX, etc. That then raises the dilemma of when to sacrifice accuracy for the
benefit of the other guy.
Several times during the recent CW SS, I was called by some weak signals
that were in and out of the mud. Try as I could, I was unable to copy their
full exchange. In several cases, they were sending a QRP precedence. I
think they copied my exchange ok since there was no request for repeats (I
think).
Here's the dilemma (bet you never thought it was coming). I know I should
not count the contact since I am pretty sure I did not copy his exchange
correctly. But, if I delete the contact, that poor weak station might miss
SC as a mult since I was one of relatively few SC stations on. Particularly
if he didn't go searching for another SC since he thought I would be his
mult. So, should I leave the QSO in the log knowing that it will probably
be deleted from my score and I will lose mega points due to the penalty
(assuming that the log checkers actually find my error) but the poor little
weak guy will get his SC mult?
I wonder if Jay goes through this self questioning when he is operating from
NT (or is it NWT?)?
For those who have persevered through this diatribe and need to know my
answer, I opted to include several QSOs that probably had bad info in them,
just so the other guy got credit for a rare mult. So, Mr. Log Checker, see
if you can find the hat. Ah, yes, rarity has its downfalls too.
See ya in Phone SS (just a little) so you can have that rare SC mult.
73,
Dennis, K2SX/4
Pawleys Island, SC (a.k.a. "a rare mult")
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