[CQ-Contest] Counting uniques

[Dave Thompson]

  Uniques were found to be busts, real uniques, or unverified QSOs
in checking logs for the CQ 160 Contests. On 160 there are few acual uniques as most stations found once they could make a contact they went on to make more.  KB5UL asked a station to give him a local QSO on SSB years ago and that station turned out to be N5IA who has become a real 160 meter world class operator.  Don N4IN had a technique on his TRS-80 that sniffed out busts written by Ed K4SB (SK).  The technique was translated to the IBM PC and installed in the recent WT4T log checking software.  From the first Don and I became aware of log packing which we called unverified QSOs.  Several hams were either DQed or their score reduced due to unverified QSOs.  

Our experiences on 160 showed that even the the most powerful usually reached no more than 3% uniques.  So that we did not punish the investment these hams made in antennas and equipment I set the threshold of 3% in the log checking software.  Over 3% the log was kicked out for review.  The maximum was set to 9% as severeal told us that Eastern European and JA operators would work stations who really only wanted to work them.  An LZ told me that on SSB the band was full of UA and UB stations from 1840 to 1870 Khz.  Some of the Eastern European stations who spoke Russian made a killing working these stations.  Several sly operators used the CIS callbook to pad their logs.  The worst was one operator who had 1100 Q's on SSB with nearly 60% uniques before further checking.  With the help of several UA's I was able to check many of the uniques.  That year ON4UN, I4EAT.and others had complained about all the QSOs being made and even with their great stations could only work about half that number.  Once the uniques passed 50% after the checking it became apparent that the station had univerified QSOs in the log and with approval of CQ Management that station was DQed.  Unverified QSos came from other stations as well.  One KC5 had a big claimed score and the score of 230K was reduced to about 40K as he had a log full of uniques and he even duped some of the uniques.  Another DQ but CQ would not let me make a note of his score DQ so all we saw was his score just disappeared.

I kept the other contest directors aware of those who were DQed or had their score reduced due to unverified QSOs.  I am so glad this issue is finally getting the attention required.  Most of us work hard to make the best score possible and to have someone cheat and beat us is hard to swallow. 

Log checking software is not infallable so personal attention is required in a few cases.  This saves us the problem of trying to correct things after the results are final. 

73 Dave K4JRB
Retired CQ 160 Contests Director