[UK-CONTEST] Question about serial numbers (not) being given by non-competing stations in a contest

[QUENTIN COLLIER]

Perhaps I as NFD adjudicator should comment here!

The fundamental points for me are:
* is that if a station won't give you a serial number, you can't make him do so
* any attempt to standardise the behaviour of all the loggers on the market in the "no serial number received" case will be doomed to failure.

So we need a workaround to cover the case where the logger won't accept a serial zero. Two options immediately spring  to mind:
1. Put a note in the soapbox field to say that you had to enter a serial 1 for QSOxxx but that in reality no serial was sent at all
2. Use a text editor offline on your Cabrillo output file to enter 000 in the received serial field.

There's scope for lots of debate here, but I hope the above practical suggestions help!

73,




Quin G3WRR 



----- Original Message ----
From: Michael Ruttenberg <g7twcham at googlemail.com>
To: uk-contest at contesting.com
Sent: Tuesday, 9 June, 2009 11:21:08 AM
Subject: [UK-CONTEST] Question about serial numbers (not) being given by non-competing stations in a contest

Hi all,

I had a heated debate with one of my fellow contesters over NFD and we'd
like to see whether there is a consensus in UK contesting land.

Basically the scenario is that we as a contesting station encountered
someone who isn't in the contest and won't give a serial number. What to do?

Q: Do you log them as serial number 1 (as the contest rules state that all
serials start with 1) or do you infer a number 1 and move on.

The argument is that SD lets you log a serial number 0, and N1MM won't - it
needs a number 1 or more. This became an SD vs N1MM debate.

The question is more likely, SHOULD you be able to log a serial number of 0?

My personal view is no, and that's where it starts to go downhill...

Mike
G7TWC with his tin hat on ;)
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