[CQ-Contest] Reflections on comments about open logs

[kr2q at optimum.net]

plus a few thought of my own.


1.   I have never heard of any serious contester (well, serious or not) who used  access to open 
      logs as a tool to figure out “who to avoid cuz they are a crummy operator.”  Every contester 
      I know wants to work everybody (if they count for points).

2.   In terms of Open Logs serving to reveal strategy, I have some real issues with this line of reasoning.  
      Here are some of my thoughts and opinions:
        a.   Someone who is not in the top ten has little reason to fear having their “secrets” revealed.  
              This is almost an oxymoron.
        b.   Throughout my contest career, whenever I have asked someone to share their log with me, 
              they have (and vice-versa).  Sharing log information with friend or foe is nothing new.
        c.   Contesters are, in reality, broken into tiers by multiple measures.  The most obvious tier (to me), 
              is how much time is invested in contesting (sitting in the chair).  If you are serious about winning 
              or even improving your score, you will do a lot better by operating more hours as compared to 
              discovering some “secret strategy.”
        d.   As others have pointed out, no two stations hear or transmit the same. Even if the operators 
              have identical skills and even if the stations are identical (which never happens), propagation is 
              the ruling force and no amount of looking at a log (or logs) will change that.  Odds are (for most 
              of us) that we need to improve our hardware (mostly outside) if we want to more closely emulate 
              the log of someone who did better than we did.  Study their log all you want; if you can’t hear 
              them or they can’t hear you, OH2BAD.
        e.   There are no secrets to learn.  Anyone worth their salt at contesting (meaning a die-hard, full time 
              contester) knows everything already or can access it with the multitude of applications and publications 
              already out there.  The trick is simply in the appropriate application of that knowledge.  Skill differential 
              is far more important than anything you can learn by looking at logs, unless you are a newbie.
        f.    Probably the real thing to learn by looking at other logs is MOVE TO A BETTER LOCATION…and not many 
              of us can realistically do that.

3.   I still think the value of open logs is DAYLIGHT and enhanced confidence in the integrity of the scores, or 
      more accurately, in the sequence of finish of the scores.  It’s also nice to know that if an error or two is 
      found, that you can report it back to the contest sponsors and have the director thank you for contributing 
      to the improvement process.

4.   As for the NASCAR analogy, I’ll try this one.  Imagine that you and your 50,000 friends (and millions on TV) 
      gather to watch the competition.  You see all of the cars lined up at the starting line.  The flag drops and 
      then a giant curtain drops over the entire oval, blocking your view.  You can walk around the oval and pick 
      the curtain up here or there, but you can’t see more than that.  And when the race is over, someone 
      announces who won.  Open logs are sort of like “let’s go the video tape.”  Not exactly the same, but you 
      get the idea.  At least you can see the efforts of the other competitors, especially if you just beat them out 
      or they just edged you out.  It is not perfect, and maybe not even really good, but it’s better than being 
      kept in the dark other than for the line scores.  At least that is what I think.

5.   Finally, as an example, recently I had an article published in NCJ about “how” I won the QRP category in an 
     ARRL DX test.  My competition and I exchanged logs and we could see the scores go back and forth until 
     the last couple hours, where I got lucky.  I don’t think either of learned much, if anything, but it was a fun 
     exercise.  If either of us had invested more time operating, our individual score would have been better…
     probably substantially so.  Nothing learned there except to sit in the chair.  More recently, I did the same 
     with K2DM. George has been contesting a long time and in the last one, he beat me.  When I looked at 
     his log and compared it to mine, you know what I found out?  I found out that he beat me right out of the 
     box and never looked back.  I was never ahead of his score.  Did his hardware suddenly change or did 
     either of us suddenly have a change in skill or knowledge?  Did he do something that I should have done 
     instead of what I was doing?  Nope.  He just beat me that time.  What did I learn by looking at his log?  
     Nothing that I could use “against him” next time; just that he won and did so soundly.  But it was very 
     nice to see the other half of the race, even if nothing could be learned from it (and nothing was expected
     to be learned).

de Doug KR2Q

USUAL DISCLAIMER:  The thoughts expressed above are my own are not necessarily reflective of any group 
or contest sponsor with whom I may be associated.