[UK-CONTEST] NFD ERROR RATES AND UBNs

[QUENTIN COLLIER]

Hi fellow contesters,
 
As adjudicator for HF NFD I am responding to the recent flurry of e-mails on UK CONTEST regarding error rates and UBNs in that event.

1. It would clearly be inappropriate to publish error rate information for individual stations. However bulk figures are included in the NFD write-up in Radcom. As a preview for UK CONTEST readers, percentage of points lost this year varied between 0.7% and 17.2 %, with an average of 5.3%.

2. The RSGB Contests Committee is working towards producing "UBN" type reports for its various contests (it already does so for the IOTA contest). However, for historical reasons, it uses a variety of adjudication tools for different events, and quite a bit of work is needed to develop a tool which will work with all (well, most) of our contests and produce the necessary data. Yes, the EU Sprints (the example mentioned on here) can do it, but they are a single event with adjudication software developed especially for that event. 
 
3. In the meantime we can often provide that data on request. For HF NFD I am certainly happy to do this. Just drop me an e-mail on q.g.collier at btinternet.com However this does currently require significant manual effort, and depending on the number of requests received, getting back to you with the information may take a little time. So please be patient!

3. There have been no changes to the adjudication criteria for NFD this year.

4. Current policy (as per General Rule 8a) is that a received serial number error invalidates the QSO. Thus a QSO that did take place but with a received serial number error will appear as a lost QSO.

5. A larger number of busted QSOs than in the past is probably a consequence of the fact that we are now exchanging logs for adjudication purposes with several other national societies who participate in Region 1 FD. This year we had over 430 overseas logs, so it has been possible to cross check a much larger proportion of QSOs than in the past, with a consequential increase in the number of errors picked up. 

I hope that clarifies things. But as a final suggestion, if you have issues involving the Contest Committee it would be helpful if you could raise them direct with the Committee (secretary at rsgbhfcc.org) rather than via UK CONTEST.  


73,


Quin G3WRR
NFD Adjudicator
RSGB Contests Committee