> Nope - in fact I think it is still eaiser to check for
> dupes on a paper dupe sheet than it is with a computer.
Come on George. Your not really serious are you? With all the prefix's
there are now?
I don't know that I would agree with K5TR that it's *easier* to dupe
with a paper dupe sheet in the Sweepstakes than with a computer, but
it's certainly *faster* to look someone up and see if they are a dupe,
not to mention less fatiguing.
With the computer, you have to type in a callsign everytime you hear a
station. With a paper dupesheet, you simply glace down at the
dupesheet and look the guy up. No typing, no external motion
required. I used paper logging and duping during the five years I
operated CW SS at N5AU's place, using the N5CR dupe sheet which was a
giant, New and Improved[tm] Op Aid 6. I must have been the last guy
using paper who was competing at a high level on the CW weekend. Not
sure if anyone was still using pencil and paper during the Fern
weekend at that point (1991).
In my opinion, computer logging slows you down in pileup situations
because it's so hard to put partial callsigns in the log. Maybe
someone will come up with a killer scratch-pad capability in a logging
program that will finally move us past this problem. N6TR has made
the best attempt so far, but it can still be awkward under some
circumstances.
Dupesheets for DX contests always sucked. When we got our first laser
printer at the university I wrote some PostScript programs that
created excellent dupe sheets that we could fine tune after every
contest, depending on how badly the G0's overflowed their alloted
space during the last contest. The pages were organized into "Europe"
and "rest of world", exlcuding JA which was tracked on the giant N5CR
dupe sheet.
It was an interesting exercise, but short lived once K1EA sent me a
copy of a new experimental real-time logging program he was working
on.
Ultimately, my rationale is that operating the contest the first time
is hard enough. I don't want to operate it a second type by keying
logs into the computer in post-contest mode, or reviewing a tape
recording for errors, or any of this stuff. So even if using computer
logging is costing me a a few QSOs during the contest, it's worth it
to me for all the time I save afterwards doing post-contest paperwork.
The extra hours I spend operating more contests, which is a tradeoff I
am willing to make for the slight degradation in QSO total.
--Trey, N5KO
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