[UK-CONTEST] Contest UBN's

[Ray James]

Interesting thread.
This is an area that has come to my attention since UBN's starting being provided in the UKAC submissions so it's not just a HF contest issue.

Nobody is infallible to making a reception mistake and therefore rightly having the contact removed but it is plainly unfair that the sender of a mistake gets off Scot free.
I have resorted to recording microwave events after receiving the occasional UBN when I was 100% sure what I submitted was what I'd received from a fellow competitor.
The value of doing this was immediate as I lost two contacts in the March 23cm UKAC!
It didn't change my table position but I was able to prove the culprits did send what I'd received and not what they'd reported.
They lost nothing when they really should have been placed at least one or two positions lower in the results which would effect the normalised scores so everyone loses out except for the offender(s).
A worse case scenario would be somebody actually losing the 1,000 point top spot and being replaced by an error maker.

I have been in communication with the adjudicator regarding this situation and appreciate it is already a matter under discussion prior to this thread appearing. 

I personally think it would be very unfair to take the easy option and scrub the contact for both parties but certainly favour a change from it only being the receiving station who gets penalised.

As has been brought to my attention, recordings can edited. Someone would really need to be desperate to go to those lengths when it is a hobby but it is a possibility.

As we're all enjoying the benefit of a quicker adjudicating and results service, it's not an easy nut to crack and submitting a total recording as Dave suggests wouldn't help that task.
The suggestion I have made is that on receipt of a UBN a strict short window of appeal is present when evidence can be presented. 

If you miss it then tough, otherwise it could go on forever and I'm sure all adjudicators have plenty other things to do.

Once I hit the send button I'm off to check last nights 23cm UKAC recording and once submitted I'll post a report later.

73 Ray GM4CXM





________________________________
 From: dave <daveg3tbk at googlemail.com>

One problem with your penalty idea is that the receiving station could 

be penalised when the sending station had sent the call incorrectly.
I am thinking particularly of stations omitting to send "/P" on Field Days.

There are at least 5 such errors in my UBN, and having checked (again) 
the recording the /P was certainly not sent.
Additionally in 2 cases the station sent "/P" but apparently was not!
In all these cases the stations concerned were European, not in UK.

This problem is always worse on SSB than CW, when of course most 
stations use the PC to send the exchange.

Perhaps in future we should submit recordings along with the logs!

73 Dave