[UK-CONTEST] IOTA contest - mults & serials

[Donald Field]

A couple of points wile I think of them:

1. Some of you have queried the difference between your claimed and final
mults from IOTA 2002, which you are unable to reconcile with QSOs which have
been zeroed (broken calls, etc.). I should have mentioned (it will be in the
RadCom write-up) that the SK2KW team turned out to have been operating from
an island in an enclosed bay, not listed in the IOTA directory. After taking
advice from G3KMA, SK2KW were reclassified as a World, rather than an island
station, and all logs were rescored accordingly. For multi-mode (and
multi-op) stations this could easily have reduced your mults by 5 or 6. It
serves to emphasise the need to check before choosing an island to operate
from in this contest.

2. I am aware (and it has been mentioned on here again recently) that
several logging programs have difficulty tracking serial numbers for
multi-op stations in IOTA. On the one hand I am under pressure from
multi-ops to be lenient when checking logs, to take account of the
difficulties they have had in this respect. Not unnaturately, other
multi-ops who have made efforts to "get it right" expect me to take a strong
line. My personal view is that the main thing is to log what you sent, so
that the other party to the QSO doesn't get penalised for receiving an
incorrect serial. But it's been pointed out to me that there may be a simple
solution for you multis - when you spot, QSY or otherwise line up a mult,
log a dummy QSO on your mult station with your own call. When you work the
mult, edit the QSO accordingly. If you fail to work it, the QSO will simple
score zero, so no harm done. Of course, there may end up being a slight
discrepancy in the time the QSO is logged, but we have to make some
allowance here anyway, as PC clocks are notoriously unreliable. Does this
make sense?

73 Don G3XTT
IOTA Contest Manager