[CQ-Contest] zero pointers etc

[Rick Dougherty]

Hi all...I have been analyzing my log to see if there are areas that I can improve my point per qso ratio...its amazing when you sit down after the contest and do a little analysis...first off...my stations are coded and I can see if the run or mult station made a qso..we made a gross number of qso's of 5286 qso's...of that total, 191 were dupes...further analysis shows that less than 8% were made on the mult station...that means that 92 % of the dupes called the run station...of our gross qso number we were called by 462 zero pointers...and its kinda amazing that some of these zero pointers were also dupes! 

Our average run rate for the entire station is 110 qso's per hour for the total 48 hours...a total of 462 zero pointers and 191 dupes is 653 qso's that were totally useless information exchanged...or a waste of 5.9 hours for the entire station....

I gave a little thought to the process and come up with the following explanations:

1. Our location has us beaming thru the major East Coast population areas to get to EU, while our competition has the back of their antennas to these same areas...
2. Most people don't have a logging/duping program....duh!!!!
3. The casual day to day operator really does not have any conception of the rules of the contest and thinks he is truly helping out...that meaning the stateside callers passing out qso's


With all this aside, the 8% that were called by my MULT operators, I offer an apology...we will work on improving our error rate and reducing our wasted effort...but what can be done to inform the masses?? You want the casual day to day operator to call you in WPX, but since we don't get any points for same country in CQWW, it really distorts the playing field....is it time to step up to the plate and allow 1 point per qso for contacts within one's country??

de Rick NQ4I