[CQ-Contest] Additional Penalty

[Paul O'Kane]

On 13/04/2016 04:11, Radio K0HB wrote:

> <snip>
>
> Without overly belaboring the obvious, your success as a contester is
> directly proportional how fast and accurately you can fill your log with
> "good" exchanges. Lower accuracy = lower score.
>
> So what useful purpose is served by the retribution imposed in the practice
> of reducing the score further with an "additional penalty"?

"Additional penalties", as K0HB describes them, appear to be
applied more often to bust callsigns, rather than exchanges,
in a few contests - including CQWW.

One argument in favour of them is that, as in multiple choice
tests, they remove any reward for guessing - perhaps from a
SCP list, or from a bust spot where you did not wait to hear
the other station's callsign.

However, since such penalties apply equally to all entrants,
there can be no cause for complaint - especially as contest
sponsors are free to set their own scoring rules.

It's probably best to think of these rules as an incentive
for accurate logging.

73,
Paul EI5DI