[TOEC] SAC2000 - Comments (Once more)

[Jan-Eric Rehn - SM3CER]

Hello again,

I'll send the comments once more.
It seems I have to do all the line breaks by hand for my
e-mails to be readable... :-(

- - - - - - - - - -

Hello,

The SAC2000 Final Results are ready at last!

I'm sorry it has taken so long, but there has been many
questions to be answerred by the SAC Contest Committee and
a lot of troubles to be solved. Preparing the final results
in ASCII format has taken almost a week and it will take at
least another week or more before I can present the results
in HTML format on the web. I had hoped that the results
could have been presented much earlier, but the development
of a new log checking program from scratch has also taken
long time and there has been lots of versions before the
last one used. Anyway, we can hope that we in SM have showed
the way and that the logs will be ready much faster in the
future, now that all the software is developed.

Also a program to type a paper log to get a Cabrillo file and
a program to convert all different kinds of ASCII logs into
Cabrillo have been developed. All three programs have been
done by Torvald, SM2EZT and I have been the "Alpha" and "Beta"
tester. I have started to check the logs several times and
then, when I've discovered a bug or had a wish for some
changes, I had to start all over again, when SM2EZT had done
a new version of the program.

The program to make a Cabrillo file from a paper log (Manual
Log Input - 423 kB) is available for download in the SAC Rules
on my contest site (with detailed instructions).

I'm also VERY sorry I had to disqualify OH1X and OH2U in the
CW part and OH1F, OH1X, OH2U and OH4RH in the SSB part. I hope
there will be no hard feelings, because there was nothing else
to do in this case! All six stations had a huge amount of wrong
sent serial numbers in their logs - between 17-70% of their
QSOs! The difference between the sent number and the received
number could be between 1-3. (They could send for instance
599123 - the other station received 599123 - then you could
read f.i. 599121 in the first log and so on). It was a total of
15.011 QSO:s in those 6 logs and it was at least 7.498 QSO:s
with wrong sent serial numbers (50%). All the stations that
worked them loosed their points and multipliers for those QSO:s!
The logs couldn't even be used as checklogs, as there were so
many wrong reports. I have checked their logs very carefully
QSO by QSO. I have also very carefully checked ALL the other
Multi-Single and Multi-Multi stations QSO by QSO, to see I
didn't do anything wrong! Noone of the others had this similar
problem.

No particular software can be blamed as I see it. Both CT, TR
and some unknown software have been involved. I beleive it must
be a network problem.

Maybe this problem has occured in earlier SAC:s, but couldn't
be detected with the manual log checking? Now, with the
computer checked logs it's impossible to get through with
things like this without penalties. One or two stations wrote
in their mail that they had problems with the sent numbers, but
it doesn't matter - the log checker need a correct log.

What to learn from this?

Everyone preparing a log to send to ANY Contest Committee must
be sure to check during and after the contest that the contest
messages are correct. You can't send one message during the
contest and present another message in the log.

If you want to look at your own checked log, with a UBN report
for every QSO, please send an e-mail to: sm3cer@contesting.com
and ask for your checked log and I will send it to you. If you
want you can even see your log in the Cabrillo format.

I also want to thank my Sub Contest Committe that was of big
help in an early stage, with typing all the paper logs into the
Manual Log Input program - around 400 logs! 

So - a big hand to the following members of SK3BG in Sundsvall:

SM3AF, Sten
SM3BCS, Eskil
SM3CWE, Owe
SM3EVR, Tord
SM3FJF, Jörgen
SM3GSK, Clas-Olof
SM3LIV, Ulla
SM3UQO, Björn
SM3WSK, Bengt

... and an even bigger hand to SM2EZT, Torvald
- the man behind the software!!!


73 de Jan

----------------------------------------------------------
Jan-Eric Rehn - SM3CER - Contest call: 7S3A
SAC 2000 Contest Committee Chairman
E-mail: sm3cer@contesting.com - ICQ: 11074897
SM3CER Contest Service: http://www.sk3bg.se/contest/
SK3BG Web Site: http://www.sk3bg.se/
Mostly QRV in MS or MM from: SK3BG - SK3HQ - SK3IK - SL3ZV
K6U at WRTC-96 / Referee at WRTC-2000
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