[CQ-Contest] Uniques, Busted, Bads in CQWW

[Trent Sampson]

Not a contest goes by from VK4KW where we do not get a heap of emails (300 was the best) with the constant message - Never worked a VK before..in X years of hamming
One of the key features of the success of the CQWW was clarity in the rules and not tinkering with them 
It is getting to the point there will be a category for Left handed Single radio 8 hour Unsociable misfits. 
The changes to the CQ WPX have us seriously thinking of doing the ARRL and RDX the weekend before and skipping the WPX .... as it is becoming obvious many others are....
One feature of Surveys - 
If they are not constructed correctly you will get skewed results 
If they are constructed correctly you will get the answer YOU want
If they are constructed properly you may get the answer you don't want to see. 
But above all you will have answers from people who take surveys. 
Don't make the mistake of listening to the vocal minority and ignoring the silent majority.

Happy New Year 2016
TrentVK4TS PO Box 275 Mooloolaba 4557 0408497550
Please note I no longer use the WIA email address where possible owing to it blocking emails from sites such as VK Logger and ARRL.

> From: xe2b at outlook.com
> To: sbloom at acsalaska.net; cq-contest at contesting.com
> Date: Thu, 31 Dec 2015 18:45:01 +0000
> Subject: Re: [CQ-Contest] Uniques, Busted, Bads in CQWW
> 
> Right on!!
> 
> Luis XE2B
> 
> Enviado desde mi Huawei de Telcel
> 
> 
> -------- Mensaje original --------
> Asunto: Re: [CQ-Contest] Uniques, Busted, Bads in CQWW
> De: Stephen Bloom
> Para: cq-contest at contesting.com
> CC:
> 
> 
> I'd have to strongly disagree with this ...
> 
> That could be a serious penalty for those of us operating in semi or
> genuinely rare entities. I know anytime I'm in a contest ...operating say
> on 10M SSB ...if I'm spotted ..I'm going to get some folks who just want
> Alaska on 10 ...the only deleted Qs should be for a non existent call sign.
> We have to run under the assumption that people aren't cheating if/until we
> know otherwise. If it is way out of kilter like UT5UGR .. then follow the
> trail.
> 
> 73
> Steve KL7SB
> 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: CQ-Contest [mailto:cq-contest-bounces at contesting.com] On Behalf Of
> Olof Lundberg
> Sent: Wednesday, December 30, 2015 2:30 PM
> To: cq-contest at contesting.com
> Subject: Re: [CQ-Contest] Uniques, Busted, Bads in CQWW
> 
> Just to add to Doug's excellent discussion of uniques: In Randy's survey I
> ticked "Against" on the question re uniques. But then I started to look
> deeper into the issue and I am now a convert - uniques should be deleted
> (but not penalized) in most contests and certainly in CQWW.
> 
> 
> 
> As an example, at 3B8MU in 2014 we had only 0.7% uniques out of 10000+ QSOs
> and this was at a semi-rare location. Looking at those uniques I am sure
> that quite a few, maybe the majority, were busted calls. I would not be
> worried about losing those "uniques" because statistically deletion of
> uniques would hit the average player equally - there would be no change in
> overall placement.
> 
> 
> 
> It would be interesting to see a global analysis of the ratio of uniques to
> busted calls. I suspect that those with a high number of uniques also have a
> high number of busted calls.
> 
> 
> 
> Now there are contests where deletion of uniques might not be appropriate. I
> could think of contests with small participation and say 160m contests where
> station capability and location is so critical.
> 
> 
> 
> There are already contests where uniques are disallowed. In 2014 I did a
> relaxed entry in the LZ DX Contest as 3B9HA. There are loads of stations
> that don't participate in the LZ Contest but want to work 3B9 so it turned
> out that the sponsors only counted 764 of my 1115 QSOs. Fine, I believe I
> understand why they do it but the net effect is of course that they
> discourage participation by DX stations so in 2015 I stayed away from that
> contest while at 3B9.
> 
> 
> 
> But in the big contests like the CQ WW and CQ WPX and most other big
> contests - yes, just delete the uniques.
> 
> 
> 
> 73 Olof G0CKV
> 
> 
> 
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