[CQ-Contest] Zero-point QSO's in CQWW

[Steve Lund]

Dick, N6AA/VK5 wrote:
> 
> I don't think zero-point QSO's need fixing.
>

The loss of these zero-point QSOs is very important. I placed 2nd on
the West Coast in the low power category, even though I received a 17%
score reduction due to zero point QSO deductions! How would you big guns
feel if you worked hard all weekend and had your score reduced 17%. Even
worse was reading the CQWW CW Honor Roll in the recent issue of CQ
Contest and finding many of the stations that didn't log me on the Honor
Roll. I've gone back over my tapes of the contest and in each case the
other station did send me a signal report. I thought the idea of the UBN
reports was to find ways to improve your operating. If this is the case,
why aren't the stations not logging zero point QSOs penalized? 

In the US there are potentially 24 mults (3 zones + 1 country) * 6 Bands
from zero-point QSOs. For a low power station this is easily 10-20% of
the score. It is a real waste of time S&Ping multiple zero-point QSOs in
hopes that one will stick.

There would appear to be several solutions:

1) Penalize the stations who are not logging the QSOs. Now that logs are
being computer checked, it should be quite obvious that a station has a
high NIL total for zero point QSOs. At some level (3 was suggested by
Barry, W2UP) the log should be classified as a check log or the
multiplier (US) removed. A real penalty would quickly change behavior.

2) Get rid of zero point QSOs. This seems unlikely.

3) On SSB I didn't lose a single zero point QSO multiplier, while on CW
I lost almost all of them. On SSB it doesn't take long to say 'I need
the mult', but how do you do this on CW? I can understand that the Big
Guns don't want to get a run of zero point QSOs going. How about some Q
signal that says that I'm seriously in the contest and need your
multiplier?


73,
Steve K6UM


--
CQ-Contest on WWW:        http://www.contesting.com/_cq-contest/
Administrative requests:  cq-contest-REQUEST at contesting.com


>From Peter Grillo, Sr." <ah3c at frii.com  Tue Nov 17 12:53:59 1998
From: Peter Grillo, Sr." <ah3c at frii.com (Peter Grillo, Sr.)
Date: Tue, 17 Nov 1998 05:53:59 -0700
Subject: [CQ-Contest] CW SS clean sweep
Message-ID: <002101be1229$597bd780$098711d8 at ah3c>


It's not too late.  You can still change your classification to =
"single-op assisted".............
There must have been at least 50 of you calling VO1SA Sunday Morning of =
the CW SS on 14.040 MHz.
Suddenly, he disappeared!
Rats, you said to yourself as the pileup started dwindling down....
Then, of all things, someone passed along that he had just moved to =
21.040 MHz.
What a huge hole that left on 14.040...........All you guys disappeared =
and went up to call him.
Who was that someone?

.........what a neat way to open up a frequency.  As a result of my =
announcement, I made about 25 QSO's in the next half hour on 14.040 with =
my puny 100 watts and G5RV calling CQ......while you all started a new =
pileup on 21.040.  I found VO1SA's pileup on 21.040 and had no guilt =
feelings at all about calling him for the next hour, because he had =
personnaly announced his QSY from 14.040 to 21.040.........Those of you =
who disappeared didn't obviously hear that announcement.  Do you feel a =
bit guilty about taking my announcement and claiming single op =
"non-assisted"?  You know who you are, so why not change your category =
and feel really good about your effort.

Irony of it all is that I missed the clean sweep by one section.....of =
course, it was Newfoundland.
But 660 QSO's was fun to achieve as a baseline to check out my new QTH.  =
I've achieved a CW clean sweep only three times in my 40 years of =
contesting.  It is an achievement we all should feel really good about =
when it comes to pass.  9 times out of 10 it is VE8/VY1 that goes =
begging.  Thank you VY1A for your outstanding signal and effort to give =
everyone that chance.

Congrats to Steve, N2IC, who was a beacon to the East Coast on 40 late =
in the day.........SS never changes.....smooth operating big guns go =
begging, but doing so they hypnotize the casual passerby into =
volunteering his #1 QSO........those Q's are the ones that make the =
difference.  I haven't paid any attention to who had the top single op =
high power claimed score, but certainly yours must have ended near the =
top, if not the top.

After such an interesting SS, who knows, I may return to the fray in =
earnest (again) some day.

--
CQ-Contest on WWW:        http://www.contesting.com/_cq-contest/
Administrative requests:  cq-contest-REQUEST at contesting.com