[CQ-Contest] 3 QSO penalty

[Kenneth E. Harker]

On Fri, Aug 24, 2001 at 11:34:05AM -0400, Bill Coleman wrote:
> On 8/24/01 10:34 AM, Kenneth E. Harker at kharker at cs.utexas.edu wrote:
> 
> >> Part of the problem isn't the software -- but with the reporting format. 
> >> Cabrillo, despite it's other fine qualities, has no way to report "no 
> >> credit" QSOs. The alternative is to report them, and suffer the 
> >> consequences of possible penalties, or to delete them, which is unfair to 
> >> the other party who acted in good faith.
> >
> >I've never understood why "almost" QSOs or "one-way" QSOs or "not quite" 
> >QSOs should be logged at all, even at zero points.  If you're not confident 
> >that the QSO happened, don't log it.  This doesn't penalize the other 
> >station at all unless the other station also decides to log an "almost" 
> >or "one-way" or "not quite" QSO.
> 
> I can think of a number of scenarios that could leave one operator 
> unsure, and the other completely assured of a good QSO.
> 
> Let's take the most basic: 
> 
> You've been up for 27 hours straight. You're in the middle of a decent 
> run. Someone calls in, you QSO, but just as you were going to press 
> return, you hit another key and his callsign is whiped out. He's gone, 
> and you can't remember the callsign you just heard. You want to log it, 
> because it was a good QSO for the other guy, but you can only guess at 
> the call.
> 
> If you log it, it's most likely to be a Bad QSO, and you may suffer 
> additional penalties. If you don't log it, you'll be find, but the OTHER 
> GUY will suffer a NIL and penalties.

So, in this case, you log what you can.  You made a QSO and if you fail to
log it, that's not really ethical.  Why should you be able to "opt out"
of a contact after the fact?  Why should you not be penalized for making an
error like you describe?  Screwing up like that is, in my opinion, no
different than busting a callsign or an exchange but not realizing it until
later.

> Life's not fair.
> 
> 
> 
> Bill Coleman, AA4LR, PP-ASEL        Mail: aa4lr at arrl.net
> Quote: "Not within a thousand years will man ever fly!"
>             -- Wilbur Wright, 1901
> 

-- 
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Kenneth E. Harker      "Vox Clamantis in Deserto"      kharker at cs.utexas.edu
University of Texas at Austin                   Amateur Radio Callsign: WM5R
Department of the Computer Sciences         President, UT Amateur Radio Club
Taylor Hall TAY 2.124                         Maintainer of Linux on Laptops
Austin, TX 78712-1188 USA            http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/kharker/
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