Fellow contesters,
While everyone is commenting on the log checking for the ARRL 10m
contest, no one has mentioned what caused the reductions in my score.
A typical CW exchange with a DX station:
QSO: 72 AY6D - EXCHANGE ERROR Log: 599 T61
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INVALID QSO - A QSO which has errors in either the callsign or
exchange,
rendering it invalid. Credit for such QSOs is
removed,
however no penalties are assessed.
A valid callsign must have at least one numeric digit,
and at least two alphabetic digits. Exchange errors
are
generally an invalid state/province abbreviation, or a
non-numeric digit in the serial number. ARRL policy
is
that non-numeric digits are not allowed in a serial
number.
I might as well not have worked any DX stations on CW. They were all
sending cut numbers and I entered them in my log as sent. Since when did
it become ARRL policy to consider such exchanges as bad? There is no
mention of this on the ARRL Website in the General, HF or 10m contest
rules nor in QST. It wasn't applied to the power level exchange in the
1999 ARRL DX contests or I would have had a negative score! I didn't
make a major effort in Sweepstakes CW, but interestingly with 300+ QSOs
I didn't receive a single cut number in an exchange.
I'm not smart enough to make the conversion from cut numbers to real
numbers in real time. I'm not in favor of post-contest log
modifications, either.
The log checking software for the CQ contests converts cut numbers. If
ARRL insists on this policy, either the contest software writers are
going to have to do the conversion automatically or it won't be worth
the time to enter ARRL contests.
Steve K6UM
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