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Re: [CQ-Contest] DXC Entry Reclassified to High Power

To: cq-contest@contesting.com
Subject: Re: [CQ-Contest] DXC Entry Reclassified to High Power
From: W0MU Mike Fatchett <w0mu@w0mu.com>
Date: Wed, 5 Oct 2016 19:28:19 -0600
List-post: <cq-contest@contesting.com">mailto:cq-contest@contesting.com>
The rules do not state that if a log is not sent in that QSO's will be tossed out. If this is what they mean then they have failed to state it. If I missed this in the rules my apologies.

   *16.* Penalties are counted as tripled good QSO points.
 * QSO is penalized for the following:
     o incorrectly logged calls (Bad Call)
     o incorrectly logged exchange numbers
     o QSO is not present in the other station log (NIL)
 * QSO neither counted nor penalized for the following:
     o other station incorrectly logged entrant's call
     o other station incorrectly logged entrant's exchange number
     o QSO time in entrant's log and other station's log difference is
       more than 3 minutes (except systematic computer errors)
     o QSO bands or modes in entrant's log and other station's log differ.
     o dupe QSO which is not in the other station's log.

   Maybe we are having an English/Russian translation issue Igor.  I do
   not know what would happen in WRTC I were to work a station that
   nobody else worked for a rare multiplier.

I have no problem penalizing both sides of the QSO. Both sides of the QSO can be sent back and confirmed if necessary. I was curious why I was seeing such large score reductions. Now I know why.


I think it is odd to penalize people if other people did not send in their logs as that is completely out of the participants control. Why would this rule be in place? The organizers felt that logs were submitted that were not fair representations of what actually happened on the airwaves? A bit of log manipulation, padding the score here and there? We have seen this quite a bit lately, so it would not be a big surprise.

I think this idea could actually work is all entrants were required to sign up 48 hours prior to the event. 24 hours from the event a list of entrants would be made available so that you could update your software to alert you to stations not in the contest and you could choose to work them or not. It still would not solve the issue where someone fails to send in a log but if someone took the time to sign up they probably would send in a log and the organizers would have an email address to ask for it in the case they forgot, etc.

Radio contests are one of the few sports or maybe the only sport where the competition/participants are unknown until the contest begins and sometimes not until the end or when results are published. The number of participants is unknown and variable over the entire contest period.




On 10/5/2016 12:48 PM, Igor Sokolov wrote:
Drew,
This subject has been discussed here on the reflector in the past and reasons were explained.
I will briefly repete them.
There are two schools of thoughts. Both have some merits and faults

1) Assumed that sender makes no errors (which is not always right) and all the errors are on the receiving side. Therefore sender is always awarded points for the QSO and receiver gets all the punishment. The down side of this approach is that even in cases when sender knows that receiver got one of the letters in the call sign wrong, the sender is not motivated to waist time and correct the receiver.

2) QSO is a team work where team consist of sender and receiver. The purpose is to relay correct information (contest exchange) from one to another. If this team failed to do it both team mates get punishment. The down side of this approach is that sender has very limited control over what the receiver gets and put down in the log.

Most of Russian contest (both internal and international) adopted the second approach because they see contest as message handling. Therefore if log of one of the particular QSO team mates is missing, it becomes impossible to verify this QSO and therefore points are not awarded. I hope it explains some of the issues raised here but I also agree that it would be better if this approach is explained in contest rules.

I personally was always a supporter of the first approach despite of its shortcomings. But still ready to play whatever the approach is as long as number of participants guarantee interesting and lively event.

BTW if during WRTC contest some of the participants would find a rare mult who is not really participating in the contest and talk him to giving 001 for the log (or just put 001 in the log) then will this QSO be counted. Just curious.


73, Igor UA9CDC


----- Original Message ----- From: "Drew Vonada-Smith" <drew@whisperingwoods.org>
To: <cq-contest@contesting.com>
Sent: Wednesday, October 05, 2016 9:34 PM
Subject: [CQ-Contest] DXC Entry Reclassified to High Power


Rich & Contesters,


This is exactly what happened to me in 2015. I asked the same obvious question; If they worked me and gave an exchange, are they not by definition in the contest? My affected QSOs were also confirmed. The issue was not addressed in the response, and there was an attempt to make me feel ashamed or silly for working a station as SN 001. Sorry, I'm not feeling any shame in that...I am just a smart contester getting every mult he can.


When RDXC got slow, I started working casual QSO party guys on phone and cross swapping exchanges for both contests. Those contacts were also denied. Why exactly? Just another good contesting move, IMHO.


If the meaning is that stations not sending in a log are not counted, then the rules should note that. Of course, most of us would consider such a rule ridiculous. I also doubt that many of us agree with a rule that says *we* lose a QSO when the *other* guy busts the exchange. Yes, they do that; read the rules. These oddities and others are why you see such ridiculous score reductions in RDXC.


Comments from the sponsor also seem to imply that policy is set by how the scoring software works, rather than the scoring software is designed based on the rules and policy. I suspect (but do not know) that this is a factor in how these oddities come about.


I will not operate RDXC while this type of nonsense continues.


73,
Drew K3PA


------------------------------

Message: 5
Date: Wed, 5 Oct 2016 08:39:43 -0400
From: Richard F DiDonna NN3W <richnn3w@gmail.com>
To: cq-contest@contesting.com
Subject: Re: [CQ-Contest] RDXC Entry Reclassified to High Power
Message-ID: <d60918e2-074a-ac84-1f43-c5821e657bda@gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=windows-1252; format=flowed

I basically gave up on Russia DX when I had my score knocked down
because I supposedly worked stations that were "not in the contest".
Not in the contest? WTF.

I worked them; LoTW confirms I worked them. How could they not be in
the contest?

73 Rich NN3W

On 10/4/2016 9:31 PM, W0MU Mike Fatchett wrote:
The silence from the RDXC folks is deafening. Not that I ever
operated it seriously, but unless they come forward and explain their
position reasonably I think they may find that participation may drop
in the future.



On 10/4/2016 4:48 PM, Juan EA5RS wrote:
Ionospheric skywave signal amplitude or strength is a time-varying
random
variable with a mean and a standard deviation.

Difference between strengths of two signals is also a random variable
with
an even higher standard deviation, even when originated from the same
location (ever heard of antenna diversity or stacks?), even when
originated
from the same antenna on even very closely spaced frequencies (ever
noticed
selective fading e.g. on 170 Hz FSK ionospheric signals?). Let alone
when
signals originate from different QTHs spaced several kilometers and from
different antennas.

I am not saying RBN data is not useful or meaningful, but to draw a
strong
conclusion you have to be sure you take into account that variability.
Based on all variables involved and all possible side-effects, I
doubt you
can assess TX power differences below 10-15 dB with a reasonable
degree of
confidence just based on RBN data.

Just my 2 cents

73, Juan EA5RS

-----Mensaje original-----
De: CQ-Contest [mailto:cq-contest-bounces@contesting.com] En nombre
de Pete
Smith N4ZR
Enviado el: martes, 04 de octubre de 2016 17:16
Para: cq-contest@contesting.com
Asunto: Re: [CQ-Contest] RDXC Entry Reclassified to High Power

Just filling in one bit of info - the RBN-based "evidence" received
from the
RDXC did not compare signal reports among multiple RBN nodes, which
would
have been meaningless for all the reasons Mike enumerated. They used the Signal Analysis Tool, which limits each comparison to a single RBN node.

Even doing same-node comparisons would require knowledge of the
dozen-plus
variables that can affect the reported SNR at any given moment. N2QT
identified one of the most important and disruptive ones - a much
stronger
calling station in near zero-beat, but there are a variety of
others. Using
these data to assert that Bob was using high power "for 5 or 10
minutes" now
and then is simply absurd.

73, Pete N4ZR
Download the new N1MM Logger+ at
<http://N1MM.hamdocs.com>. Check
out the Reverse Beacon Network at
<http://reversebeacon.net>, now
spotting RTTY activity worldwide.
For spots, please use your favorite
"retail" DX cluster.

On 10/2/2016 11:03 AM, W0MU Mike Fatchett wrote:
Using RBN to attempt to prove a power violation alone is absurd.

We already know that the antennas are different. 4 Square vs Mono
Pole Vertical 80m

What feed lines are being used?

How old are the feed lines?

What quality of feed line is being used?

How many radials are being used?

Were the coax cabled installed properly?

What matching systems are being used?

Are there tuners being used at P33W?

Could there be other losses at P33W from bandpass filters, harmonic
filters, switching, etc.

What power was actually being used at P33W? Is the power limit in
Cyprus 400 watts?

What are the stations locations to water? Topography, etc.

There could be many other factors that affect why station a is louder
than station b in the RBN network.


What was the reason for looking at P3F's log to begin with? P3F's
score is 4th in HP. P3F easily wins LP with his score of 12.
million. He beats 9A5Y by 1.5 million points. However 9A5Y beats
IQ3IY by almost 2.5 million points. Was 9A5Y's logs checked too? P3F
had a great score LP. It also appears that the competition for
whatever reason in LP was not as competitive? It was quite close from
2nd place down. It would appear that P3F ran much more than 9A5Y who
had more multipliers and almost 700 less qsos.

I find it hard to believe that P3F was able to amass 500 extra qso's
by the accusation of running an amp for 10 minutes here and there.


I have no problem with a contest chairman asking an entrant if they
might have possibly classified their log incorrectly because mistakes
happen. If contest committees believe that people are cheating then
provide the proof and it better be more solid than what we have heard
than this and DQ them. Reclassifying them serves no purpose other
than to tell us that you "think" they might have done something. To
me that does not cut it.


W0MU









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------------------------------

Message: 6
Date: Wed, 5 Oct 2016 09:15:11 -0400
From: "john@kk9a.com" <john@kk9a.com>
To: cq-contest@contesting.com
Subject: Re: [CQ-Contest] Alpha 87A Alpha Max
Message-ID: <946d08c6bb8cc2c7ac56317636b0d983.squirrel@www11.qth.com>
Content-Type: text/plain;charset=iso-8859-1

Alpha 87A's are pretty inexpensive now. I am not sure how it works without Alpha Max, I owned one with Alpha Max and it tuned very nicely. My comment
regarding this amp is that they are very expensive to repair if you send
it back to the manufacture so be cautious what you purchase.

John KK9A


To:cq-contest <cq-contest@contesting.com>
Subject:[CQ-Contest] Alpha 87A Alpha Max
From:Jim Brown <k9yc@audiosystemsgroup.com>
Reply-to:k9yc@arrl.net
Date:Tue, 4 Oct 2016 13:47:09 -0700

Guys,

I'm about to buy an Alpha 87A, early production, without the Alpha Max
Firmware. That's the feature that provides auto tuning (as opposed to auto
recall of saved settings, which was how the amp was originally built).

Some questions.


1) How useful is the Alpha Max auto-tune feature?

2) The new owner of Alpha says the upgrade kit is no longer available. Is there an easy way to add it? That is, are the chips generic? I'm guessing that at least one of the two chips is an EPROM. Is it practical to buy the
chips and copy the firmware from another 87A?

3) Is it worth going to the trouble? I would use it for my high dipoles
for 80 and 40M.

Thanks and 73, Jim K9YC



------------------------------

Message: 7
Date: Wed, 5 Oct 2016 09:30:43 -0400
From: w8fj@aol.com
To: bob.5b4agn@gmail.com, cq-contest@contesting.com
Subject: Re: [CQ-Contest] RDXC Entry Reclassified to High Power
Message-ID: <157950a00ce-1f8c-f1b8@webprd-m65.mail.aol.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8

I have been following this thread for awhile now. There certainly appears to be some shady things going on here. Perhaps there should be an organized effort to boycott next years RDXC event.

John, W8FJ







-----Original Message-----
From: Bob Henderson <bob.5b4agn@gmail.com>
To: cq-contest <cq-contest@contesting.com>
Sent: Wed, Oct 5, 2016 8:38 am
Subject: Re: [CQ-Contest] RDXC Entry Reclassified to High Power

On 15th September, the day following release of the preliminary results of
RDXC I wrote the following note to the adjudicators:

Quote:

In your preliminary results P3F entry in RDXC 2016 is listed in the SOAB
Mix category. This is not correct. P3F entry was in the SOAB Mix LP
category. An Elecraft K3 at no greater than 100W output was in use
throughout the event.

Please adjust your results to reflect the correct category of entry for P3F.

Thank you.

Unquote:

No reply has been received until today. This I interpret to be the follow
up to my Skype discussion with RA3AUU on Monday. Full text of the note
follows:

Quote:

Dear Bob!
 Your entry in RDXC-2016 was reclassified from LP to HP.
For the decision of reclassifying your entry from LP to HP RDXC
committee evaluated and compared several factors simultaneously:

 Your signal levels and signal levels of other LP and HP stations
(excluding peak values) around you within 500-1000 km radius with
comparable or better antennas than yours on the same time frames of
15-30-60 minutes and at each of 10-15 points of reception.

 Your signal levels together with your and other LP/HP stations calling
behavior while S&P'ing for unique and distant DX/Oblast mults on 160
and 80 m as well as those unique DX/Oblast mults' receiption ability
of other LP and HP stations at the different time frames.

 Your RUNs on 40-80-160 CW and 40 and 80 SSB.

 Based on these analysis we concluded that during different periods of
time you've being using higher power than implies for LP entry.

 The decision is final.

RDXC committee

Unquote:

*Bob, 5B4AGN*
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