[CQ-Contest] Exisiting Penalty System is Working Very Well

[George Fremin III - K5TR]

On Wed, Sep 06, 2000 at 03:51:02PM -0800, kl7ra wrote:
> 
> And they follow with a long list of logic, NONE OF WHICH ARE TRUE when
> one or more competitors in the class/section "cheats" by recording the
> contest. The incentive to "cheat" is promoted by the disproportional
> penalty (greater the penalty, greater the reward for recording) and
> the fact it's [impossible] to be caught UNLIKE excessive power or
> packet assist.

I would like a world were folks did not "wash" their logs before 
submitting them - since I do not go back and clean up my log
by playing a recording or running it through some sort of 
callsign checking program (I think this would be a much better
way to do it than listening to a recording.)

Some people will no doubt choose to do these things - I don't 
I know others who don't do this either - and we seem
to fair pretty well in the log checking process.  

I am sure I could get the errors down further with
the above techniques but I do not see this as the right 
thing to do - I should strive to get it right DURING the contest.

> If you read pro-penalty posts you find no mention of "recording".  The
> reason is obvious. Recording a contest to review and edit the log
> screws the system. 

I have started recording my contests - so far I have recorded
the 1999 SS SSB, 1999 10m contest, 2000 ARRL DX contest (first 22 hours),
2000 wpx ssb contest and the 2000 IARU contest (I think).  
I do this for several reasons:

1.  Because I can - with MP3 compression I can record 30 hours of
    the phone SS (even the off times) in stereo (both radios) in
    about 420Mb or less of disk space.  I think this is cool.

2.  In case something interesting happens during the contest.
    I can hear it again or play it for friends.
     http://www.kkn.net/~k5tr/audio/k1ar.mp3

3.  So when I get the log checking report I can go listen to
    the recording and see why I made the error.  
    (and yes they are usually MY errors) 

4.  So when I get a QSL card for a QSO I can not find in my
    log I can listen to the recording to see if I can 
    figure out what happened.

I don't go back and correct my log before I submit it - in 
fact I dont think I have ever listened to more than 45 mins
of my contest effort - it is just way to BORING and painful.
Those periods spent on 160 meters from HC8N in the ARRL DX 
contest were more than painful enough the first time - I dont 
want to live thorough it again - but you can if you would like.

http://www.kkn.net/~k5tr/hc8n_160m.wav
(Warning this is 3.4Mb of static crashes)

-- 

George Fremin III                 
Johnson City, Texas             "Experiment trumps theory." 
K5TR (ex.WB5VZL)                            -- Dave Leeson W6NL
geoiii at kkn.net                             
830-868-2510                      
http://www.kkn.net/~k5tr                   


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