K5ZD Announcements, Log checking, SSB

CQ WW SSB 2014 Disqualifications and Warnings

The CQ WW Contest Committee takes its job as referee for the contest very seriously.  Each year a group of dedicated members spends many hours pouring over logs, listening to SDR recordings, and following up on input from the contest community.  We do not always have perfect information and it is difficult when each entrant is operating from their own station without any outside observer. Even so, the logs and recordings often tell us a clear story. It is our job as referees to call them as we see them.

Each disqualified entrant is notified of the decision and given 5 days to respond. We do this to allow everyone the opportunity to present an explanation of what appears in the log.

We regret to announce the following actions for CQ WW SSB 2014.

Disqualifications

Entrant (Operator) Violation
CT1FHL unclaimed assistance, self-spotting
DJ9ZB unclaimed assistance
E74Y unclaimed assistance
EN0U (UT5UDX) two signals, self-spotting, transmitting above 7200
EU6ML unclaimed assistance
F4BHW unclaimed assistance, self-spotting
F4FLQ unclaimed assistance, self-spotting
F4GVZ unclaimed assistance
HG1S* time shifting to meet band change rule
HG3M (HA3MY) unclaimed assistance, power, self-spotting
IK4DCX unclaimed assistance
IT9ESW unclaimed assistance
IZ7DMT unclaimed assistance
N3IQ (ND3F) unclaimed assistance
R3BM unclaimed assistance
R4WDX unclaimed assistance
RT4F (RK4FU) unclaimed assistance
RT6A** time shifting to meet band change rule
RX1CQ unclaimed assistance
SN5X (SP5GRM) unclaimed assistance
SP3PWL unclaimed assistance
UA5B unclaimed assistance
UA9JDP unclaimed assistance
YT7A (YU7BJ) unclaimed assistance

*HG1S (HA1TJ, HA1DAI, HA1DAC, HA6NF, HA7PL, HA8DM, HA1DAE)

** RT6A (R7AA, UA7C, UA6YW, RL3DR, RU6AX)

Warnings

Warnings are issued when a possible violation is detected, but there is not sufficient grounds to justify a disqualification -OR- when we want to make entrants aware that they will be under more scrutiny in the future.

Entrant (Operator) Violation
DJ7MH self-spotting
DM4X wide signal
NP2P (N2TTA) transmitting outside of license limitations
RT4F (RK4FU) wide signal
UW2M (UR0MC) wide signal

We saw a big increase in the number of stations from IARU Region 1 that were calling and working stations above 7200 Khz.  Using the SDR recordings (not frequencies in the logs), we verified over 100 stations transmitting outside the amateur band.  Many are probably the result of clicking on DX Cluster spots or simply following the lead of others that are breaking the rules. We have decided to issue warnings to all stations with 2 or more occurrences as a first step. In addition to the warning, any QSOs above 7200 were removed from scoring. Next year we may take more aggressive action if this behavior continues.

Entrant (Operator) Violation
9A3B (9A2VR) transmission above 7200
E74EBL transmission above 7200
9K2HN transmission above 7200
CN2R transmission above 7200
CR6K transmission above 7200
CR6P transmission above 7200
CT1EAV transmission above 7200
DP6T transmission above 7200
E79D transmission above 7200
EA3VN transmission above 7200
ED1B transmission above 7200
ED1R transmission above 7200
EE5T transmission above 7200
II2A transmission above 7200
IK2YCW transmission above 7200
IO5O transmission above 7200
IQ2MI transmission above 7200
IR4M transmission above 7200
IW2HAJ transmission above 7200
IZ2ODM transmission above 7200
IZ8EPX transmission above 7200
LZ5K transmission above 7200
LZ5R transmission above 7200
OE5T transmission above 7200
RA3OA transmission above 7200
SK3W transmission above 7200
SO4R transmission above 7200
SO9T transmission above 7200
UP2L transmission above 7200
UT1AA transmission above 7200
UT2UU transmission above 7200
UW7W transmission above 7200
OH0Z transmission above 7200
SV8/HA5OV transmission above 7200
TM1A transmission above 1850

 

Updated May 2, 2015

K5ZD CW, Log checking

CQ WW CW 2014 Log Checking Statistics

The log checking and results of the 2014 CQ WW DX Contest CW are now complete and have been sent to CQ Magazine.  The official results will appear in the May 2015 issue of CQ Magazine.

Some interesting statistics from the log checking for CQ WW CW 2014.

7,657 logs total
5,848,165 QSOs total
      213 different countries
   39,696 ( 0.7%) QSO with unique calls
   24,765 (62.4%) Unique calls busted during checking 
   58,372 ( 1.0%) Dupes
5,147,149 (88.0%) QSO checked against another log
5,008,392 (97.3%) QSO checked good when checked against another log
   78,460 ( 1.5%) Busted calls
   18,969 ( 0.4%) Busted exchange
   41,328 ( 0.8%) Not in Log

It is quite remarkable that we are able to fully cross check 88.0% of all QSOs in the logs received.

All entrants will be sent a link to their log checking report in the coming days. Use the report to compare your accuracy to the numbers above.

Median score reduction for all logs: 8.27%
Median Error Rate for all logs: 2.56%

(Median = 50% of logs are lower and 50% are higher.)

K5ZD Announcements, CW, Log checking

CQ WW CW 2013 Log Checking Reports

An email with a link to the Log Checking Report has been sent to everyone who submitted a log for the CQ WW DX Contest CW 2013. The Log Checking Report includes a complete summary of how the final score was calculated and any errors or deductions that may have occurred. We make these reports available so participants can have the opportunity to learn from their mistakes.

How does your accuracy compare to others? The chart below shows the number of errors by percentage and the cumulative percentage of entrants in that bin.

 

WW CW 2013 Error Rates Chart

 

Table. Numeric values for chart

Error Rate bin Number of logs Cumulative %
<0.100% 386 5.19%
0.500% 113 6.71%
1.000% 565 14.30%
2.000% 1658 36.58%
3.000% 1347 54.68%
4.000% 921 67.05%
5.000% 584 74.90%
10.000% 1305 92.43%
20.000% 477 98.84%
30.000% 68 99.76%
40.000% 17 99.99%
More 1 100.00%

For example, there were 1658 logs with an error rate between 1.0 and 2.0%. 36.5% of the total entrants had an error rate of 2.0% or less. The median error rate was 2.7%. This is an amazingly good result when you consider the total number of contacts made during the contest.

A few more statistics from the contest log checking.

 7,442 logs total
5,505,384 QSO total
 205 different countries
 39,950 ( 0.7%) QSO with unique calls
 22,495 (56.3%) unique calls busted 
 55,672 ( 1.0%) dupes
 323 ( 0.0%) Cabrillo format errors
4,871,227 (88.5%) QSO checked against another log
4,729,508 (97.1%) QSO checked good against another log
 73,087 ( 1.5%) busted calls
 22,165 ( 0.5%) busted exchange
 46,467 ( 1.0%) not in log

The scores in the LCR are what will appear in the official results. The results for CQ WW SSB and CW 2013 are scheduled to appear in the May 2014 issue of CQ Magazine.

Please send any questions or comments about your log checking report  at: https://cqww.com/contact.

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.