[CQ-Contest] Cabrillo Records beginning with X

[Paul O'Kane]

On 01/03/2014 05:48, David/K8CC wrote:

> An "X" at the beginning of a Cabrillo line doesn't ean that line is 
> necessarily "ignored by the robot and any checking software".

It does mean exactly that for all Cabrillo header
tags, whether introduced by software authors or
contest adjudicators. I have been using X on header
tags since 2002, with no effect on the validity
of entries to dozens of contest sponsors.  I did
this on the personal recommendation of Trey N5KO,
one of the originators of the Cabrillo standard.

With regard to the more recent use of "X" with
Cabrillo QSO records, this thread indicated
uncertainty about whether the relevant tag should
be "X-QSO" or "XQSO".  It seems to me that it
should not be too difficult to accept either format.

> Your comments sound to me like you're trying to justify the presence 
> of erroneous or poorly-formatted data in any line beginning with an 
> "X".  As a software author, I'm puzzled why you would take this 
> position?  If it's some unique X-line you invented for the purposes of 
> your software, it's probably not a problem. But please format any 
> "X-QSO" lines just like a "QSO" line for that particular contest.  Any 
> excuse not to is lazy programming...

That appears to somewhat of an exaggeration.

However, the thread has raised the issue of why
there is no longer central control of Cabrillo
and its specifications.

Ken K1EA advised, on 2 March, that X-QSO may
be used on for "CQWW-CW, CQWW-SSB, CQWW-RTTY,
CQWW-WPX-CW, CQWW-WPX-SSB, CQWW-WPX-RTTY,
ARRL-RTTY-ROUNDUP, ARRL-DX-CW, ARRL-DX-SSB
and all ARRL-VHF contests."

It's good to have clear statement on this.
What's not so good is that this information
does not appear to be included in the published
rules for the ARRL contests mentioned, or in
the official Cabrillo site.

http://www.kkn.net/~trey/cabrillo/

What's the chances of having, once again, a
single, up-to-date reference site for Cabrillo?
And what happened to the ARRL Software Developers
Group email Reflector - set up in 2010?

73,
Paul EI5DI