[CQ-Contest] Not quite that pure

[Larry N7DF]

I have several times had legitimate QSOs struck from my logs where a true unique was considered a busted call because a station with a nearly identical call to the one I worked as a unique sent his call in.

I sometimes get on and just work one or two of my friends in a contest but don't bother sending in a log.  If N7DM, for example, is on in that contest and works three or four people but doesn't send in his log either, then it's very likely the QSOs I made will be shown as busted calls rather than uniques.  To prevent this I usually try to work at least three other stations in other categories that I am sure will send in their logs.

As a check in a recent major contest where I made well over 1500 QSOs I recorded the entire contest on LP video tapes with a digital clock in the video, my audio on one track and the received audio on the other track.  I played back the entire contest and verified 100% of my contacts deleting all log entries where there was any doubt of the two way QSO.  When I checked  the log analysis results I still had nearly 2% of my contacts disallowed as busted calls and only 11 unique calls listed.  I went back and reconfirmed the contacts where the QSOs were shown as busted and every contact was clearly identified as the station I had in the log.

I don't think any system will be 100% accurate but I think there are still too many chances for losing legitimate QSOs.  I wonder if something like the Super-Check-Partial could look at past contest activity and prevent calls being shown as busted if they showed up in past contests.




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