[WriteLog] Fw: Quick SS log checker question.

[Dave L Thompson]

.I agree with the idea but its hard to put in practice.  I have always
disagreed with automatically applying a penalty.  In the hand log days we
always reviewed a log and if a certain number of problems came up (such
as NIL or busts) then we looked at more of the log.  The real penalty was
to remove more Q's.

With the electronic logs you either have to have a penalty or not.  For
NILs apply the penalty.  For busts
apply the penalty unless a dupe (with corrected call).   For location or
serial number etc apply the penalty if its wrong except as we have seen
with the ARRL 10 meter contests et al where its correctly logged but the
logging program plugs in something else!   For example in the CQ 160 CW,
hundreds would have lost a VY2ZMM contact.  He sent 599PE but the logging
programs changed this to PEI or VY2.  I manually added these back!!!!! 
Same for Quebec where I get VE2, PQ, QU, QC where only QC is correct.

I also disagree with a contest sponsor not looking at the exception
reports and letting the software score the whole contest....the problems
we had with sections and logs lost continue to prove that point.
73 Dave K4JRB 

> 
> The ARRL might want to review their "penalty" rules.  The current 
> rules were
> developed for paper logs.  These paper logs were sampled by the 
> checkers and
> any discrepancy was penalized.
> 
> In a computerized environment each log record and field is checked.  
> They
> might want to recognize that "software errors" are possible and 
> allow for
> some less stringent checking.  They could configure their software 
> to allow
> a certain percentage of field errors before imposing a penalty.
> 
> Jim