[CQ-Contest] Log Checking - you guys are right

[Lee Hiers]

Based on all the traffic on the reflector and the private email I've 
been getting from many different folks, I have been convinced.  

Yes, I am missing the big picture, and the only way any of us should 
put any faith in the contest results is by having the logs checked as 
fully as possible.

If you're NIL, you should lose the QSO without exception.  It doesn't 
matter if you have audio tape or QSLs or notarized affadavits from 
the other station - the workload for the log checkers would be much 
too heavy to investigate the bad Qs.  If it was really a good QSO 
you're getting dinged for, well tough.

I think it should be taken farther though...if we're in for penny we 
should be in for a pound (isn't that the old saying?).  I'm saying 
don't do it halfway.  If you have any unique callsigns in your log at 
all, they should be removed unless the station with whom you are 
claiming credit sends in a log to corroborate the QSO.  After all, 
that's what precipitated this whole discussion.

We have software developed by the log checkers that can pretty much 
reconstruct a log for a station that does not send one in (for 
contests with meaningful exchanges of information - particularly a 
serial number)...with enough accuracy to prove whether or not a 
claimed QSO with the non-entering station is valid.  

Otherwise, I would suggest that if the other station does not send in 
a log, the credit should not be allowed for the QSO, because it is 
impossible to verify that such a QSO actually took place.  I think 
this should be implemented anyway for contests with no meaningful 
exchange, such as CQWW.

These changes are easy to do within the log-checking framework we 
have now.  It's actually somewhat easier, in that there would be no 
human intervention required to determine if Us should be converted to 
Bs.  The only thing to add would be a small routine to delete all 
calls for which there was no log submitted.  That should be pretty 
easy.

To do less is to lessen the integrity of the results.  Each and every 
QSO must be verified in some way or it should not count.  Anything 
less is indefensible.  

I have seen the light.

73 de Lee

-- 
Lee Hiers, AA4GA
Cornelia, Georgia