[UK-CONTEST] Re UBN Reports.

[brian coyne]

Some good points Roger.
I can't blame Super Check because I don't use it however I did wipe many of the dupe qso's, this year I logged them all.
 
For the 2/3 years prior to 2007 for one reason or another I made only part time entries and 
perhaps my log did not get individual attention and I didn't notice much in the way of 
deductions or maybe the checking prog has become more powerful and sophisticated, we had to apply for an individual UBN report and I didn't have to bother with that and I didn't 
understand it anyway.
 
What sparked my current interest was coming across a page on the cqww site which I hadn't seen before   which fully explain these UBN reports. http://www.cqww.com/cqwwubn.htm
 
Having previously assumed the errors were mainly the other guys fault I have now looked at 
the matter more objectively and fully studied the statistics, also having access to other 
stations logs can be very illuminating.
 
>From a total of almost 1,000 q's I had 36 removed, this comprised 8 NIL's and 28 'busts'.
19 of those busts were typo's with 9 miscopied calls.

I lost 3 mults, there was 1 bust, 1 NIL & 1 typo.

In addition I had 6 uniques for which I don't appear to have been penalised, plus 8 'not in 
the others guys log. The report also generates a list of stations who have claimed you who 
do not appear in your log, in my case this was 6.
In summary the system may not be perfect but is pretty good in spurring us to improve our 
performance. I operated for about 28 hrs so that 15% penalty meant I effectively wasted more than 4 of those hours. Ok I am never going to get it down to zero but I need to concentrate more on the keyboard, not hitting adjacent keys and reversing suffixes, To a large extent this aspect has since  been improved because previously I was logging on the keyboard but was not computer keying the rig, hand keying what was in my head. As for the miscopies I don't normally get many and in the hustle and bustle of WW, qrm & qsb make a few inevitable, especially if the other guy doesn't correct you,  I hope I can continue to keep it below 1%.
 
The NIL's are harder to understand. Logging all the dupes should improve the result somewhat but what else can be done? When doing S&P I stick with it until I am sure the other guy got the call ok, if he doesn't and moves on I don't log it. Possible answer for NIL here is the other guy, like me, made a typo but I don't think so (see later), access to the other guys log can confirm if this was so. When running we expect the other guy to correct his call if we get it wrong, if he doesn't we bust. If I query and he does not respond and moves on I don't log it. I am not guilty of any of these, I always wait to hear either the 'tu' in s&p or when running ensure he has finished before fielding the next call.
 
The 'not in my log' are a conundrum. Some undoubtably are inexperienced ops who thought I was working them when I was working someone else but what of the remainder? I suggested typos above but when I compare the ones I busted with these NIL's there is nothing like a match and in fact the UBN list tells you the correct calls of those you busted. In short 'I dunno.
 
Thanks again Roger for the comments, I hope this exchange will alert some of our newer 
participants to contesting of the necessity of accurate logging. In  these big contests 
carelessness is severely punished and it is also unfair to get the other guy penalised 
through your error, he could lose a top place listing, it has happened.
 
73  Brian. 5B4AIZ (C4Z).