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Re: [CQ-Contest] Use of SCP Data Encouraged

To: <cq-contest@contesting.com>
Subject: Re: [CQ-Contest] Use of SCP Data Encouraged
From: "Mike Smith VE9AA" <ve9aa@nbnet.nb.ca>
Date: Tue, 4 Feb 2020 21:43:28 -0400
List-post: <mailto:cq-contest@contesting.com>
So far, everything John, W2GD has said makes perfect sense and I agree with
him.

He has more experience than a lot of folks here.  Some would do well to
listen to folks

with lots of experience.  You can learn much from those experienced and
successful contesters 

willing to share that with y'all.

 

He hasn't really said this, but I glanced over it in my previous 2 posts on
this subject:

 

Using SCP is not magic.  You still have to copy what is sent.  "Guessing"
should be discouraged if you're just going to blatantly enter one of the
calls from SCP and blindly go with it.  You need to VERIFY. 

SCP will potentially help guide you under a narrow set of certain
circumstances.  QRM/QRN, you get most of a callsign and are maybe missing 1
or 2 letters from a long call.  You need to go back to a call and listen to
the station confirm it or correct it. If you don't get that confirmation,
you are just rolling the dice that SCP's guess is better than yours.  You'll
often lose that bet and I do not recommend it.

 

If you only copy only 2 or 3 elements of a 2x3 or 3x3 callsign, SCP is not
going to magically fill it in and all be well with your log..you may as well
send "OK2??? agn" and start fresh on the air.

 

I've listened to certain stations run and not correct calls on the fly, or
guess wrong callsigns horribly wrong from the folks that were calling
them(etc) and not listen to the folks they were working then I and looked at
their error rates post-test and some are quite high (like 10 or 15%).  A
couple times I've operated big contests in NL as VO1TTT and more than once I
had EU's sending back to me "K1TTT 5NN 14" (or whatever.) over and over.   I
believe that they were just being lazy and typing in TTT and wanting the
magic of SCP to do the job for them.  That's not its intent. (at least, not
the way I use it). If you let it, SCP can work against you.

 

If you think SCP is going to do the job for you, you just don't understand
the proper use of this tool.

 

Mike VE9<crackle>A

 

 

 

Mike, Coreen & Corey

Keswick Ridge, NB

 

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