[CQ-Contest] Log checking with mismatched bands

[Steve London]

Now that CQWW has an open log policy, I cross check all of my NIL's with the 
other station's logs. What I frequently see is that the other station does not 
have a CAT interface between their radio and logging program - they have to 
manually change bands on their logging program. The error occurs when they 
forget to do this, or do it "late" - after making a number of QSO's on the new band.

A little frustrating to get hit with a NIL for this, but I assume that over the 
course of a 48 hour contest, everyone gets an approximately equal share of 
unfounded NIL's.

73,
Steve, N2IC


Randy Thompson K5ZD wrote:
> For WPX I take a slightly different approach.  **IF** I can identify which
> band the QSO was made on, I will make a correction so the QSO counts.  After
> all, a QSO was made and I see no reason to punish one station because the
> other one made a logging error.  In my experience, most of the band errors
> are due to a software glitch or mistake when retyping the log.  
> 
> However, if I can not determine the band with some certainty or don't have
> time to figure it out, then it goes as a NIL for both stations.
> 
> There are two kinds of mistakes that are really annoying for a log checker.
> Band errors and time errors.  These are pretty fundamental items yet you
> would be amazed how many mistakes are made.  Why get the hard part of the
> QSO logged (call and exchange) and then lose the contact because you
> couldn't tell what time it was?!
> 
> Randy, K5ZD
>  
> 
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: cq-contest-bounces at contesting.com 
>> [mailto:cq-contest-bounces at contesting.com] On Behalf Of Tree
>> Sent: Wednesday, January 06, 2010 8:20 PM
>> To: cq-contest at contesting.com
>> Subject: [CQ-Contest] Log checking with mismatched bands
>>
>>
>> K2DSL asks:
>>
>>> So my question is, assuming the contest log checking program cares 
>>> about the band at all, which I imagine it might, what happens if 2 
>>> conflicting log entries exist when it tries to match them 
>> up? Do both 
>>> people get a NIL? Does it try and figure out which band is 
>> correct and 
>>> how could it do that accurately?
>> This is an issue I have come up against a number of times.  
>> On the surface, it kind of seems like a QSO logged on a 
>> different band should be counted.
>>
>> However, I will argue the right thing to do in the case where 
>> the band matters is to count these as not-in-logs for both logs.
>>
>> When a QSO is claimed on different bands, it is really 
>> difficult to say for sure which of the two logs are correct.  
>> One of them has to be wrong.  
>> Since the QSO can't be verified to have actually taken place 
>> on either band, the only real choice left is to count it as a 
>> NIL - in both logs.
>>
>> Note - for a contest where the band doesn't matter (like the 
>> Sweepstakes), I would say the band should be ignored.
>>
>> Tree N6TR
>> tree at kkn.net
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