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WHY WAS MY SCORE REDUCED?
-or-
50 WAYS TO MISCOPY A CALL!
Remember the 'leopard in the dark' I mentioned last month? Let's
discuss big cats for a moment. Of all the big cats, the leopard
is the most dangerous of all. Joy Adamson, of 'Born Free' fame,
reports in her writings that lions and cheetahs can be all but
implicitly trusted under the proper circumstances. A leopard, on
the other hand, can never be trusted. You must be constantly on
your guard when working with leopards, as they can turn on you
without warning and for no apparent reason. Even more dangerous
is a leopard in the dark. Leopards have been known to go into a
darkened room, kill a person, drag them out of the room, drag them out of the room, and
never be noticed by other occupants of the room. Miscopied calls
are like leopards in the dark--you never know where they might be
or when they will 'get you'. You have to watch for them vigilant-
ly!
With the new 'work RVHFG members for Rochester Cup credit' rule,
I had more of a chance to examine people's logs than any other
contest chairman before me. And I was appalled by what I found!
After you operate VHF contests for a while, you find that a
certain group of people can be expected to be on the air in any
given contest. After a few contests, you begin to remember these
calls. Furthermore, if you use the W2HPF logging program, you
will see these calls come up time and time again if you use the
database feature. Many of these calls belong to hams we have
contact with on a regular basis. And, yet, corruptions of these
very calls appear in our contest logs. (I say 'our' because I
have been 'taken' by miscopied calls, too!)
Contests can be long and boring and tiring. Or, they can be very
fast and exciting when an opening happens our way. Each of these
conditions produces different types of logging errors. A lot of
these won't be caught until you filter through your log ler through your log later,
but you can take steps to see to it they don't happen to begin
with. Here are a few of these:
1.) Use phonetics with your call. When you are tired, or in a
hurry, or trying to pick a weak call out of the noise, it is easy
to confuse one letter with another. There are a few local calls
that are especially prone to this problem, as they are made up of
letters that sound like other letters. A good example of this is
the call of Pete Fournia, WA2BPQ. I saw a number of versions of
this call in people's logs, such as WA2VBQ. This is a real easy
error to make, and is preventable by using phonetics. And, when
using phonetics, make sure you are using standard phonetics. The
use of other phonetics may be easier to pronounce, or sound
'cute', but doesn't facilitate communications. Nearly everyone
will recognize the standard phonetics, but may be confused by the
nonstandard phonetics. Using my own call as an example, I have
heard many operators give it as November Sugar Nine Echo in
multiop efforts. This rolls off the tongue nicely, but the cor-
rect and recognized phonetics would be November Sierra Nine Echo.
2.) If you use paper logs, take extra care to make your log
legible. It is really easy . It is really easy to write some letters in such a way
that they are easily confused with other letters. For me person-
ally, I have problems with D's and O's, and U's and V's. I have
adopted a way of drawing D's and V's that leaves no doubt as to
which is which. For you, it may be other letters. such as N's and
W's. Computer logging fixes this problem!
3.) Use scratch paper. As you hear a station, write the call
(and grid) down on a sheet of paper. Use a different sheet for
each band if you can. Do this even if you computer log. I have
saved many a broken Q by finding missing information on the
scratch paper. I have also resolved many illegible calls by
comparing the scratch paper with the log!
4.) Use a dupe sheet. This can be in addition to or in place of
scratch paper. You may discover copying errors even before you
end the QSO this way.
Now, the contest is finally over. A few days have gone by, and
you are finally sitting down to submit your log. A lot of people
just make a quick count of their Q's and grids, fill out the
summary sheet out, and submit their entry. This is not the way to
go!
Take some time to go over your log CAREFULLY! It is also a good
idea to transcribe a paper log transcribe a paper log onto new forms, or process it with
a post-contest computer log processor. DON'T send in your chick-
en-scratch originals. DON'T just make photocopies of your logs.
This can make an barely readable log even more unreadable. In any
case, KEEP YOUR ORIGINAL LOG! Computer users are advised to
backup their original log files before they do any post-contest
processing.
Let's look at some of the things you can look for when examining
your log:
1.) Double-check the counts. It is really easy to be off by
one or two Q's when counting Q's on several pages of sloppy logs.
Make sure you have thoroughly duped your log before counting.
Double-check the grid squares worked for proper count and avoid-
ance of duplicate claimed grids. This can be challenging with the
proliferation of rovers these days.
2.) Dupe-check your log. The importance of this cannot be
emphasized enough. It only takes a 2% score adjustment to get
your log disqualified. Unmarked dupes will get you there faster
than anything else, as they can be detected without reference to
other logs. This is another good reason to go with computer
logging!
3.) Recognize and fix the most common mental errors made in
copying. Here is a list of the more frequently encountered er-
rors:
A.) WRONG CALL. Most easily recognized by being associated
with a grid that doesn't make sense. This error is often found
with a second wrong call just after the first (You filp-flopped
two calls), or a call you know you worked but can't find in the
log. Both of these errors occur most often when you work several
stations in quick succession and then write them down. The
scratch paper can help out a lot here.
B.) WRONG GRID. This has the same causes as 'wrong call'
above, but are often harder to resolve. This is where comparison
with other bands helps, or using a database or last years' log to
discern what grid is really the correct one.
C.) WRONG PREFIX. This is really easy to do. Again, an error
likely to 'catch' you when you are busy. You write down the cor-
rect call suffix, but you get the wrong prefix. A good example of
this might be KA2ZNC vs WA2ZNC. This is where memory of common
calls, a database, last years' log or even a copy of the RARA
directory can come in handy. If a call 'just doesn't sound
right', take a moment and check it out. Another thing I sometimes
noticed was the wrong-prefix call followed a few Q's later by the
correct call, and credit taken for both! Just for grins, I
cross-checked a couple of these, and found the other station just
had the first station logged once. So, this was a double error:
The first operator miscopied the call and called it a new Q, and
the second operator didn't catch the dupe!
D.) WRONG CALL AREA. This is similar to the 'wrong prefix
error' above, but the call area is incorrectly copied. This can
be impossible to catch, unless you recognize the rest of the call
and the grid, or you worked the same station on another band. The
'search partial' feature or Jeff's software can help you find
these. Just as with the wrong prefix error, I often found the
wrong and right version of the same call, within a few Q's of
each other, worked for credit on the same band!
E.) DYSLEXIC TRANSPOSITION. This is a real easy mental error
to make, and often you cannot catch yourself making this kind of
error because it is the result of a 'bad circuit' in your brain!
This is the kind of error I make most frequently! A good example
of this kind of error would be N2KSX vs N2KXS. The S and the X
got reversed, and you didn't even realize it! (To make it even
more confusing, there was a N2KSX on along with N2KXS, but the
former station was in Buffalo (FN03) and worked by just two
stations. The other station was in FN12 and worked by most every-
one!) You find this error by carefully checking each call. The
'search partial' feature in the W2HPF software helps here, too.
F.) TYPOGRAPHICAL ERROR. I saw a few botched calls in comput-
er log listings that at first didn't make a lot of sense until I
looked at my computer keyboard while analyzing these logs. The
wrong letter was invariably located on the keyboard next to the
correct one. The best one of these, seen in more than one log,
was N2IXW, instead of N2IZW. In almost every case of this ob-
served, it was a case of not quite reaching the correct key, and
the key actually struck was closer to the center of the keyboard.
With computer logging, the best way to avoid this is develop the
discipline of reading the call before pressing 'enter'!
G.) MISCOPIED CALL. This is the one class of error that is
not easily detected, nor is it generally fixable. You simply
miscopied the call, and correctly entered the wrong call in your
log. The excitement of working a rare grid, or digging one out of
the noise, can cause this one. This is where we need to develop
discipline as operators. Make the effort to get the call and the
report right. Just don't THINK that was FN23, KNOW that it was
FN23 the other operator was sending. The only way to get good at
this is to PRACTICE, PRACTICE, PRACTICE! Pass some traffic. Be a
net control operator for a local net. Work some low-band con-
tests. (I have noticed that some of the newer control ops on the
Monroe County FM net will miscopy call after call. As time goes
by, they will improve at this.) One particularly amusing incident
of this type that I saw was a log with N2WK/R, FN13 listed. Wayne
assures me he did not operate mobile at any time in the contest!
I discussed this with the operator who listed it, and we deter-
mined that the call listed should have been N2WVK/R!
The last thing I want to mention is that as we get older, our
mental facilities tend to weaken. (This is an objective observa-
tion, and is not aimed at any particular individual(s)!) I no-
ticed that the number of errors tended to increase with the age
of the operator. Weak signal operating apparently puts quite a
demand on the 'grey matter DSP' in our heads, and could prove to
be a good way of measuring mental function! (Yet another way hams
can carryprove to
be a good way of measuring mental function! (Yet another way hams
can carry out basic research!) In any case, as you get older, be
more on the alert for these sorts of things. If you know the
'leopard' is coming, prepare to meet him. If you are older and
catch a number of these errors, spend a little more time while
operating to make sure you got it right the first time. The aging
of our minds as we get older can be compensated for by our expe-
rience as operators, IF we know what to watch for. Therefore, our
older operators can be our BEST operators, and it behooves us
'young pups' to listen carefully when they offer advice!
I am sure you can think of other ways log errors can creep into
your log. This is by no means complete! But, I would like to see
each and every VHFer who reads this publication take the time to
make sure his or her log is really 'ready to submit' when the
finally submit it! No one likes having their score reduced, or
worse yet, being disqualified. Score reductions and disqualifica-
tions can become a thing of the past if we will all take the time
to CHECK OVER OUR LOGS!
Next month, the topic will be 'the mindset of the contester'. We
will look at the psychological and strategic aspects of preparing
to contest. But, in the meantime, remember that THE MOST Imber that THE MOST IMPOR-
TANT PART OF YOUR STATION IS YOU!