[CQ-Contest] penalty: followup 1

[K3BU at aol.com]

In a message dated 9/6/2000 11:27:14 PM Eastern Daylight Time, 
DougKR2Q at aol.com writes:

> 
>  I don't see many "old" records (just two from the 80's). 

Using this as a proof is a bit silly, we know that participation is going up, 
quality of operating is going up (just compare spread between top ten few 
years back and now). You take five years jump and plunge into new sunspot 
cycle you bound to get records wiped out. Look at Curacao bunch, their scores 
go up and down with band conditions, but have significant jumps between the 
following peaks. So is that proof that penalties are right?
What it really means, that thanks to the penal system, one has to beat the 
record by say 40% and hope to be UBNed only by enough percentage to still 
have more points left than old record. I wonder how many were UBNed from some 
records.
I was "fortunate" to be UBNed below the record of OH0MEP on 160, where there 
was huge difference between reductions, just about 4 QSOs below the record. 
This is when it hurts. 

Another typical case. 4O1A had his rig chopping off the first dot. He kept 
sending VO1A, I listened to it for perhaps 4 minutes, I didn't know of any 
special calls from Newfie land, number of people worked him as VO1. They 
worked what they heard, UBN says they didn't, I bet they were penalized. Is 
that right?

Low band operating with crackles and noise often takes dot out of the call. 
In the name of non-criminal operating we should be requesting everyone to 
send their call 3 times. Then 2 out of 3 would indicate error free call?

We are really forced to tape the contest and then proofread the log and UBN 
reports to have evidence that it was our error, or someone else's. 

Again, I think it is perhaps time to revise the penalty system with the aim 
to improve the contest and invite more participation. When newbie gets hit 
with 45% reduction, I doubt that he will enter it again.

Yuri 4E1BM4 (oops)


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