K5ZD Announcements, Log checking, SSB

CQ WW SSB 2013 Log Checking Reports

Everyone who submitted a log for the CQ WW DX Contest SSB 2013 has been mailed an encrypted link to view their Log Checking Report for the contest. The reports were sent to the email address that submitted the log and to any email address included within the log (using the EMAIL tag).  If you have not received your report, please check your spam filters. You can request the link at: https://cqww.com/contact.

You can view a sample Log Checking Report here: k5zd.rpt

Some statistics from the log checking process:

8,482 logs total
5,551,137 qso total
 228 different countries
 58,328 ( 1.1%) qso with unique calls
 29,914 (51.3%) unique calls busted 
 45,380 ( 0.8%) dupes
 443 ( 0.0%) Cabrillo format errors
4,547,210 (81.9%) qso checked against another log
4,416,925 (97.1%) qso checked good against another log
 73,173 ( 1.6%) busted calls
 19,108 ( 0.4%) busted exchange
 38,004 ( 0.8%) not in log

It is rather remarkable that almost 82% of the 5 million contacts reported were able to be cross checked with other logs. Thanks to everyone who submitted a log and helped make this level of cross checking possible. Even more amazing is that 97.1% of those contacts cross checked as being good.

The log checking report provides full details on how the final score for each entry was calculated.  It shows the raw score before checking and the reductions. Each Not-In-Log, busted callsign, and busted exchange are listed.

Unique QSOs are also listed for information purposes.  A unique QSO is one with a callsign that was not reported by any other station.  Over half (51.3%) of these were found to be busted calls.  But, experience says these unique QSOs are probably bad calls more than 90% of the time.

We have introduced a new Error Rate calculation to the reports this year. This number represents the percentage of contacts that were found to be in error. It does not include duplicate QSOs. This number is a more accurate representation of accuracy than looking at the percent score reduction, which can be much higher for smaller logs where the penalties and lost multipliers can have a higher impact than they do for large logs.

You can see the Error Rate number as part of the score summary section.

    1.3% Score reduction
    0.3% Error Rate based on claimed and final qso counts
       5 (0.2%) calls copied incorrectly
       0 (0.0%) exchanges copied incorrectly
       0 (0.0%) band change violations
       6 (0.2%) not in log
      15 (0.5%) duplicates (Removed without penalty)
       1 (0.0%) calls unique to this log only (not removed)

The average Error Rate for all logs was 3.60%. Use the chart below to see how your error rate compares to others. The blue lines show the number of logs with that error rate. The red line shows the cumulative number of logs at that error rate or lower. Someone with a 9% error rate was in the top 73% of all entries.

wwph13_error rate chart

 

Error Rate Count Cumulative % of all entries
<1.0% 2360 13.91%
2.0% 2237 27.10%
3.0% 1952 38.61%
4.0% 1614 48.12%
5.0% 1218 55.30%
6.0% 998 61.18%
7.0% 830 66.08%
8.0% 735 70.41%
9.0% 575 73.80%
10.0% 515 76.83%
11.0% 446 79.46%
12.0% 340 81.47%
13.0% 325 83.38%
14.0% 295 85.12%
15.0% 263 86.67%
16.0% 211 87.92%
17.0% 229 89.27%
18.0% 157 90.19%
19.0% 147 91.06%
20.0% 138 91.87%
21.0% 118 92.57%
22.0% 87 93.08%
23.0% 91 93.62%
24.0% 89 94.14%
25.0% 93 94.69%
26.0% 55 95.01%
27.0% 55 95.34%
28.0% 58 95.68%
29.0% 43 95.93%
30.0% 48 96.22%
31.0% 47 96.49%
32.0% 47 96.77%
33.0% 43 97.02%
34.0% 38 97.25%
35.0% 32 97.44%
36.0% 27 97.59%
37.0% 28 97.76%
38.0% 19 97.87%
39.0% 20 97.99%
40.0% 28 98.15%
41.0% 19 98.27%
42.0% 10 98.33%
43.0% 13 98.40%
44.0% 19 98.51%
45.0% 19 98.63%
46.0% 11 98.69%
47.0% 15 98.78%
48.0% 15 98.87%
49.0% 11 98.93%
50.0% 10 98.99%
>50.0% 171 100.00%

Please send any questions or comments at: https://cqww.com/contact.

K5ZD Announcements

Scoring 7O2A

It was an exciting surprise when Dmitri, RA9USU, appeared in the CQ WW DX Contest SSB 2013 from 7O2A in Socotra Island in Yemen. This was a rare one!

The country files used by the most common logging software have Yemen in Asia and zone 21.  The operator at 7O2A was sending zone 37.

As the logs came in, we needed to make a decision on how to score contacts with 7O2A. Is it zone 21 or 37? Is it Africa or Asia?

A little research about Socotra revealed:

  • WAC says Asia, based upon an RSGB request in 1954
  • RSGB Prefix Guide (2012, G4BWP) says Africa
  • RSGB IOTA says Africa, AF-028
  • Wikipedia says it ‘may be considered to be in Africa’

Given the above, we have decided to score Socotra island as zone 37 in Africa.  The country files used to perform the log checking have been set to score 7O2A this way.

Since the operator sent zone 37 for every QSO, anyone logging 7O2A in zone 21, will have an exchange error and lose the contact.

If you are interested in learning more about the unique environment found only on Socotra, please see this article by National Geographic (http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2012/06/socotra/white-text) and accompanying photographs (http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2012/06/socotra/melford-moffett-photography).

 

Socotra Island

 

 

K5ZD Announcements

CQ WW Historical Score Database

We are pleased to announce a new searchable score database containing all CQ WW DX Contest entries from 1989 to 2012! There are 104,078 SSB entries and 96,139 CW entries in the database. You can view the database here: http://www.cqww.com/score_db.htm

The historical database project has been lead by John Golomb, N2NC. John recruited a team of volunteers to help with the data entry. The CQ WW database would not exist without their time and effort. The data entry team includes: AA4NU, AD1C, JK3GAD, K1EA, KB9OWD, N3RD, N5DX, NO5W, OH6NIO, ON7SS, PD2R, W2JU, and N2NC.

Data from the past 5 years were obtained directly from the log checking output. Data for the prior 4 years came from files provided by K3EST. Anything earlier was typed in by hand from the magazine results. That represents many hours looking at very small print while typing in thousands of call signs and numbers! We owe these guys a round of applause.

The on-line score database will be the official record for the CQ WW Contest. Despite our best efforts, with 200,000 line scores, there are sure to be some errors.

Step 1 – Check our work

You can help us by taking a few minutes to check that all of your own scores are correct.

  1. Go to http://www.cqww.com/score_db.htm
  2. Type your call in the search box and click Go.
  3. You will see a list of every contest entry where your call sign was used or listed as an operator. Please check that the country (call area) and zone is correct for each entry.
  4. If you find any errors or have questions, contact us at: https://cqww.com/contact.
  5. If you were involved in a multi-op, are all of the operator call signs included?

Step 2 – Enjoy

We have come up with a few tools to help you look back through the history of CQ WW entries.

View the number of log entries for each year by country: http://www.cqww.com/stats.htm

All time records by world, continent, or country: http://www.cqww.com/records.htm (These records are automatically generated from the score database.)

Zone records: http://www.cqww.com/recordsbyzone.htm

Yearly winners for any category and country: http://www.cqww.com/winners.htm (Its fun to look back and see who has stood at the top of the podium.)

Download a certificate. All entries received by the deadline in 2012 have the option to produce an Adobe pdf file participation certificate.

One fun thing to do before the contest is to filter the database to show all scores in your target entry category. Then use this information to set a goal. For example, see if you can reach the top ten all time scores in your zone or country. Look at the band breakdowns to get an idea of how conditions change as we progress through the solar cycle.

Notes

Band breakdowns are only available for scores in 2007 and later. We have also entered breakdowns for some of the world top scores from the magazine writeups. If you would like to have band breakdowns included for your scores, dig up the UBN report that you received for your entry and send it  at: https://cqww.com/contact. We need the UBN report because it has the QSO and multiplier totals that were calculated during the log checking process.

John and his team will continue adding more years to the database. If you would like to help, please contact us at: https://cqww.com/contact.

K5ZD Announcements, Rules

CQWW Rules Available in 13 Languages

We are pleased to announce that the rules for the CQ WW DX Contest are now available in 13 languages. You can access any of the languages from http://www.cqww.com/rules.htm

Thanks to the following people for their help with the translations:

Arabic by KF5EYY

Bulgarian by LZ2CJ

Chinese by BD4WM

French by F6BEE

German by DK9VZ

Italian by I2WIJ

Japanese by JK3GAD

Portuguese by PY2WS

Romanian YO9FNP

Russian by VE3IAE

Slovenian by S50A

Spanish by EA4KD

Translating contest rules is not fun or easy.  We appreciate their time and energy (and those who helped with review and comments)  to help promote the CQ WW and contesting to more people around the world.

The rule translations are especially important this year with all of the changes. We have tried to make the translations as accurate as possible, but in the event of a dispute, the English version of the rules will be the standard.

Any questions about the rules or translations should be sent to questions@cqww.com.