[CQ-Contest] Uniques not counting and emotion

[Warren C. Stankiewicz]

Mark Beckwith writes:

> This has been talked about for so long that there is no reason anyone
> reading this reflector doesn't know it.  Please don't get on and only make
> one QSO.  It doesn't help.

Ah, but Mark, the people who get on and only make one or two contacts are 
almost definitely people who not only do not read this reflector, but 
probably don't know it exists. I bet they could probably care less, too.

In addition, we're all ostensibly trying to win whatever contest it is we're 
participating in. How do we win? By working more stations than anyone else. 
That means I've got to work more people than anyone, and the more of those 
casual people who get on and only make a contact or two that *I* work that 
you *don't*, the better the score I'm going to beat you by.

In my years of checking logs for ARRL, I saw this time after time. There are 
a large group of hams, both domestic and international, who get on the air 
on a given weekend, tune across the bottom of a band, work one or two of the 
loudest signals, and go on to something else. Obviously, the number of them 
you work have a direct impact on where you finish.

There's deleting uniques by suspicion, and raising suspicion by uniques. The 
practice, or possibility of a practice of simply deleting uniques from a log 
simply because of their uniqueness is plain wrong. If you can't prove they 
busted the call, you can't take it away. Period. It's just wrong.

Using uniques to then verify if a call was copied incorrectly (by checking 
the other log) is a great tool, and certainly should be used.

With malice towards none,

Warren, NF1J