[CQ-Contest] A Contester's Dilemma, or when is it necessary to take the fall for someone else?

[Kenneth E. Harker]

On Wed, Nov 14, 2007 at 10:31:34AM -0500, Dennis McAlpine wrote:
> 
> Here's the dilemma (bet you never thought it was coming).  I know I should 
> not count the contact since I am pretty sure I did not copy his exchange 
> correctly.  But, if I delete the contact, that poor weak station might 
> miss SC as a mult since I was one of relatively few SC stations on.  
> Particularly if he didn't go searching for another SC since he thought I 
> would be his mult.  So, should I leave the QSO in the log knowing that it 
> will probably be deleted from my score and I will lose mega points due to 
> the penalty  (assuming that the log checkers actually find my error) but 
> the poor little weak guy will get his SC mult?  

Don't mislead the other station into thinking they have a valid QSO if
they do not.  If you ask for repeats, you can't get it and say "sorry" and
move on, the other station should not log the QSO either.  If you instead say
"thanks" and log what you are pretty certain is incorrect information,
you deserve to get a penalty and the other station might or might not get 
points they do not deserve.

I would operate to maximize score, which in a contest with a real penalty 
structure like the Sweepstakes, requires high accuracy.

> See ya in Phone SS (just a little) so you can have that rare SC mult.

>From my QTH, South Carolina was tied for the 58th rarest section (out of 80) 
last year in the phone Sweepstakes.

-- 
Kenneth E. Harker WM5R
kenharker at kenharker.com
http://www.kenharker.com/