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A scoring question - working same station in two countries

#1

Yesterday Dave G3TQQ and I worked 5 stations on G/LD-037 Little Mell Fell:

G4OBK/P, G4WHA/A, G0TDM, M0GHM/M and MM0GHM/M.

My question is if we had only worked say:

G4OBK/P, G4WHA/A, M0GHM/M and MM0GHM/M would we still have qualified the summit for points?

Graham M0GHM was travelling north on the M6 motorway and we worked him in England and Scotland.

I know in the above case we could have either worked each other by taking it in turns leaving the activation zone or we could have worked one of the others using their alternative calls to qualify for points. However, I would just like to know the answer in case this situation arises again and there aren’t those alternative options.

73 / Happy New Year
Nick G4OOE

#2

You are working a call sign. Doesnt mater where the call sign is, you can only count it once per activatoin towards the 4 you need to qualify the activation. Others will put it more elequently than me!

Compton

#3

Hi Compton, I think Nick’s point is that it’s a different callsign. UK callsigns change as they travel over borders as in this case (from England M0GHM to Scotland MM0GHM).

However I agree with you that I think as it’s the same operator, it can only be counted as one chaser. It’s a similar case to when someone calls under their own call sign and again under a club or special event call sign I think.

73 Ed.

#4

I guess it comes down to whether the database scoring mechanism interprets these as two different callsigns…

What if the two stations worked had been G4AZS and G4AZS/M ?

#5

It’s so long since any of this code was touched I had to go and look to see how it works…

The callsigns you give in the log are saved in the file if they pass a character validation. This is just in case Mrs. Tables’ son takes part in SOTA. Then whenever the scoring code runs on your logs the callsigns found are processed by a routine that takes the character validated call and returns the root callsign.

M0FMF or MM0FMF or M0FMF/P or MW0FMF/M or F/M0FMF or DL/MM0FMF/MM or add infintum all get converted into M0FMF for counting and verification.

So M0GHM/M and MM0GHM/M is the same station (which is true) and counts as one QSO.

#6

Thanks for the clarification Andy. That confirms it then Nick - good job we had the S2S QSO yesterday on 2m FM!

73 Phil

#7

Thank you very much Andy for sorting this one out for me.

Yes Phil it was indeed a good job that you were out as well yesterday.

Dave G3TQQ was willing to bet me a fiver that it would count as two stations. It was a pity I never took him up on the bet - hi hi!

Cheers
Nick

#8

I think it’s a reasonable assumption that as the country has changed, M0 to MM0, then it may count as two QSOs. I think the rules say 4 stations not QSOs which is subtlely different.

It’s a corner case in the rules. 4 people can stand in the same location and I can work each of the using their own calls as they pass a mike amongst themselves. That counts as 4 stations. But the same guy having moved from one country to another is the same station in a different place.

So it is 4 stations and not 1 station in 4 places.

#9

Out of curiosity, are there any other non-trivial rules for generating a “root callsign” (i.e. rules specific to one administration)? Or is the UK (+ crown dependencies) truly unique in this respect?

But presumably one person holding 4 callsigns (foundation+intermediate+full+club) could count as 4…

Hard problem :frowning:

Martyn

#10

I don’t know of any more awkward than the UK. Most others have something like X1XXX/2 or X2/X1XXX or X1XXX/X2 and so on.

#11

From time to time some countries allow the prefix to be changed ro celebrate something. The VK prefix (optionally) changes to AX three (or is it four) times a year is one example. The Hong Kong amateurs can Change from VR2 to VR20 up until June 30th. this year to celebrate their “escape” from British Cononial rule (although they may regret that going by recent protests against the central China government - but that discussion will become too political for this reflector).

My point is that it’s unreasonable to expect the database software to capture all these possible call sign changes and as always we should rely on what is “fair” in these cases.

73 Ed.

#12

Yes, a jolly good job you activated TW002 yesterday Phil thanks, and Nick, if you are really sure, then next time go for it and claim a fiver hi !

73 Dave

#13

Are you allowed to have 4 callsigns in the UK? I know you can have full+club but once you move up a level don’t you lose your old callsign? I’m pretty certain I’m not entitled to use G6RZL.

#14

Yes.

#15

You could actually have more than 4 - with multiple calls in one or more category (i.e former Class-B and Class-A full calls and / or multiple club calls).