[CQ-Contest] /MM in ARRL 10

[David A. Pruett]

I'm part of the team that does the logchecking for the ARRL 10M contest, so 
let me clarify the situation with Ken's log, and also answer N4GN's question.

First, for the ARRL 10M contest we expect the exchange field for a ITU 
region station (either maritime or even aeronautical mobile) to be R1, R2, 
or R3 as appropriate.  To be somewhat flexible, we'll also accept MM1, MM2 
or MM3 as well.  In either case, this MUST BE IN THE EXCHANGE FIELD - i.e., 
WM5R/MM2 with a blank exchange field will not get credit.  This is common 
sense and consistent with the rules which say that the exchange for ITU 
region stations is RS(T) and ITU Region.

In Ken's log, the QSO in question appears as follows:

K7HI/MM      59  2

Most everyone is familiar with the ARRL 10 rules - mults are states, 
provinces and DXCC countries (not including W, VE, KH6 or KL7 which are 
state/provinces).  State/provinces send RS(T) and their state/province, 
while DX stations (i.e., non-state/provinces) send RST and serial 
number.  Since ITU region stations are supposed to send RS(T) and ITU 
region, we treat them as a variation of a non-DX station (i.e., their 
region is essentially their state/province).

To digress a moment and answer N4GN's question, when we cross check 
callsigns we remove all portable suffixes which do not effect 
scoring.  These would include portable call area identifiers, /M for mobile 
or /MM for maritime mobile, /QRP, /a or /p portable identifiers, and 
such.  Suffixes which modify the country are retained.  So if Tim is 
signing N4GN/6 and somebody logs him as N4GN, everything matches up OK.

Getting back to Ken's example, he did not get credit for the region 2 mult 
because the exchange simply shows "2"; not "R2" or "MM2".  The callsign is 
evaluated as K7HI with the "/MM" stripped off, and thus the "2" is seen as 
a QSO number, which is not a valid exchange for a non-DX station, and hence 
the QSO is busted.

I hope that clarifies things for this weekend.

Dave/K8CC


At 08:58 AM 12/12/03 -0600, Kenneth E. Harker wrote:
>     Since I lost credit for a maritime mobile contact (and mult) in
>last year's 10 Meter Contest, I was wondering what the proper way to log
>these in a Cabrillo file is.  Using my own call as an example, do I log
>a maritime mobile station in ITU Region II as:
>
>WM5R     59  2
>WM5R/MM  59  2         <-------------- the format I used last year
>WM5R     59  Region II
>WM5R/MM  59  Region II
>WM5R     59  Region 2
>WM5R/MM  59  Region 2
>WM5R     59  R2
>WM5R/MM  59  R2
>something else?
>
>How you log this is not specified in the contest rules or the online Cabrillo
>documentation, and my request for clarification from the Contest Branch
>(after I received my UBN report) was never answered.  I should have asked
>this a week or two ago, but I only now thought of it...  So, for those of
>you who didn't lose credit for a maritime mobile station, how did you
>log the ITU zone exchange information?
>
>FWIW, the lost QSO and mult didn't didn't change where I finished in the
>contest.
>
>--
>----------------------------------------------------------------------------
>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          Central Texas DX & Contest 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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Dave Pruett, K8CC
Tim Mitchell, K9TM
ARRL 10M Contest Logchecking Team