[VHFcontesting] ARRL Contest Robot and 903 mhz Q's

[Robert Cumming]

Steve et al.

As it did to you, 'the ARRL contest robot gave me fits this time.

Not having broke 100 Q's I did a quick check of my log , hit the 
convert to Cabrillo format in my logging program *(VHF-DX V 4.1.56) 
and sent it off to the league by e-mail.  Soon after came the first 
bounce.  All My Q's were bounced for not one but two reasons.  First 
looking at the error messages and the screren version of the log (not 
Cabrillo0 the line numbers didn't line up with the Q's in my log so I 
looked at the Cabrillo text file and found that the line numbers 
included the header (station info and Soapbox).

After sorting that out I compared the Q's with the cabrillo data and 
the error messages - ie QSO B = Invalid band Spec "B"  a quick look 
at my last Jan (2005)VHF test log - the frequencies looked ok and 
they matched my submissions up to and including the June,05 and Sept 
05 tests - not a reject.

Also all my q's were rejected as In valid date and time - it stated 
the contest period as 1900Z on 2006-10-22 through 0359 on 
2006-01-23.  SXtrange was that the time in the log fell within this time slot.

Figuring that the robot was acting weird - I resent the log as it 
stood and went to bed.

The next AM My e-mail had another reject message from the robot 
Listing invalid Band Specification (A, B, C, D, 9, E, and F) - Well 
ok - the robot took the info in this format last contest - what happened?

Went to the ARRL website and searched on Cabrillo format and came up 
with the  http://www.kkn.net/~trey/cabrillo/
  site - ok the spec called for the frequency not A, B, C etc.

When did this happen the robot digested my log ok last time with letters.

In the history section it stated:

"
2002-08-03      Letter codes for VHF bands depricated.  Only number
                 codes should be used.

Well ok nice of them to let us know - why did they take the letter 
designation for so long after the change -nice of them to let us know.

I went back and manually edited the Text file to convert the "Letter" 
designation to the Frequency (thank God for my word Processor's Find 
and replace feature).

Resent and only my 903m 1296 and 2304 Q's bounced this time - checked 
and found they wanted 902, 1.2 and 2.3.

Re edited and resubmitted ok this time.

Boy, Never have so many labored so long and so hard to accomplish so 
little = 91 Q's for 5976 points.

And they wonder why some hams don't submit their logs!

Looks like time to invest in a new logging program as the "Cabrillo 
output of VHF-DX no longer matches the Required format

VRY 73

Bob Cumming
W2BZY
QRV 50-2304 this time ( didn't get the antennas up for 3456 and 10G 
this go round)
 From EL98hr



  At 10:08 PM 1/25/2006, Steve Gilmore wrote:
>Hello all,
>
>
>
>Just a quick post I submitted my log to the ARRL for the January VHF
>Sweepstakes and it threw out all the 903 Q's
>
>They were listed in Cabrillo as 903 so maybe they changed something. This
>was the decoding from the logging package
>
>So it appears something is amiss here.
>
>
>
>For those who send in logs pay attention to this ...
>
>
>
>Just a note to see if anyone else has had the same issue.
>
>
>
>Steve Gilmore - W4SHG
>
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