"Doing QSO" without listening

This ‘particular station’ makes similar ghost QSOs on SSB as well though Peter!

Tom MO1EYP

In reply to M1EYP:

Perhaps it is time that this “particular station” was excised from the database “pour encourager les autres”! There are plenty of witnesses!

73

Brian G8ADD

In reply to G8ADD:

Perhaps it is time that this “particular station” was excised from the
database “pour encourager les autres”! There are plenty of witnesses!

Has this “particular station” won or applied for any SOTA awards?

Colin

In reply to W1DMH:

Mike, I will not be deleting any non starred QSOs. Often people I QSO
with are repeat contacts that “just don’t play” SOTA (yet).

Neither will I.

There are not many unstarred QSOs in my chaser log, but there are a few.
For example on 5th November last year I worked MM0ROV/P on Ben Macdui for a 10-pointer. It is unstarred, because MM0ROV does not upload any logs to the database. That does not (necessarily) mean the contact is not valid; it probably just means that he doesn’t upload logs, no more than that! There is no way of checking, short of making contact with the operator and asking him.

It begs the question, what is the point of having the “starred” system at all?

73,
Walt (G3NYY)

Indeed Walt, it is not, and never will be a ‘complete’ system. What it does do is assist chasers in homing in on parts of their log that MAY have errors - or parts of their log where the corresponding activator’s log may have errors. There could be other reasons, like those you suggest - but it certainly helps you to weed out any of your own typos.

Tom MO1EYP

In reply to MM0FMF:

Probably a system that allows you to flag a contact that is in error
would be the fix. i.e. you record the fact that a chaser has your
details wrong. Then when the chaser logs in (s)he gets a prompt saying
“contact xxx is in error please fix”.

Ah, but… this would not work where an activator has uploaded an erroneous log. For example, I had an S2S contact while in Portugal and my chaser log doesn’t show an asterisk for that contact. The log uploaded by the other activator appears to be in error, in fact there appears to be part of it missing around the time that I worked him and there are repeat calls in the log. Unfortunately I cannot locate his email. I am not primarily a chaser, but I do keep a tally of S2S contacts to claim the Summitsbase awards, so correctly logged contacts are important.

73, Gerald G4OIG

In reply to G4OIG:

The fine details matter not. A chaser would report either a specific QSO in the activator’s log is wrong (keyed to activation log id) or they are missing from an activation (keyed to activation id). An activator would report that a specific chase is wrong (keyed to chaser log id). Those 3 id’s allow the system to unique locate any user of the system who would be notified of the errors. They would then fix them or ignore them. It lets the people involved notify each other of issues without bothering the other 5200 users. The idea being stolen from the WOTA forums.

If that wont do then you’re no worse off than now. But neither you nor anyone else gets access to any of the emails people registered with. They were given in good faith and will remain private.

Googling for the chap who hasn’t logged you shows me 3 ways of contacting him, 2 electronically and 1 by post. So whilst you wait for me to implement this you could be chasing it up yourself! :slight_smile:

Andy
MM0FMF

In reply to G3NYY:

Hi Walt,

It begs the question, what is the point of having the “starred” system
at all?

I think that the starred system is a good way to show the behaviour of a chaser, no more.
But it is important because, as many activators, I often hear chasers who send me a report when I am in QSO with another.
Today, there are more and more hams who receive CW with their computer and send their callsign again and again on a DX or SOTA frequency found on a cluster, in the hope to be in the log. In a pileup, the decoder doesn’t work very well.
But what can we do ?

73 Alain F6ENO

In reply to MM0FMF:

Googling for the chap who hasn’t logged you shows me 3 ways of contacting him…

My hand has been duly smacked Andy. I must try harder… Sounds a bit like my school report!

73, Gerald G4OIG

Edit: Joined HamCall to get the email address - issue sorted.

In reply to MM0FMF:

Googling for the chap who hasn’t logged you shows me 3 ways of
contacting him, 2 electronically and 1 by post. So whilst you wait for
me to implement this you could be chasing it up yourself! :slight_smile:

I can see it now …

“Dear Old Man, I want to claim a contact with you on Beinn Macteuchter at 15:00 UTC on 1 April 2009. Very please add my callsign to your online log.”

ROTFL.

73,
Walt (G3NYY)

In reply to F6ENO:

Hi Alain,

found on a cluster, in the hope to be in the log. In a pileup, the
decoder doesn’t work very well.
But what can we do ?

I think we need to be careful not to discriminate anyboby possibly disabled or with health problems that wants to participate to SOTA. Thus “hearing aids” or computers to decode cw should be allowed in my opinion.

The claimed awards are made public in SOTA new by GM4TOE. I always thought that the MT checks any possible filed complains at this stage of the award application. I do not see that it is necessary to touch the data in the database. Modifying the data is dangerous anyway.

73, Jaakko OH7BF/F5VGL

In reply to F5VGL:

Modifying the data is dangerous anyway.

To my knowledge only one person’s data was removed from the database by the MT and that person asked the MT do to that.

The only person ever caught cheating was asked to delete all of his activations where he had cheated and he deleted just the one activation there was proof he was cheating.

Another participant threw his teddy far, far out of the pram when he took objection to having follow SOTA’s rules and asked to be removed from the program. He removed his own records before the MT could but was unhappy when he found out he could no longer access the database despite asking to be removed. C’est la vie!

Finally another occasional activator/chaser wanted nothing more to do with SOTA when he was confused that we were becoming part of Facebook. His records remain in the database but he doesn’t have access at present. When he requests access he’ll be re-enabled.

The only other time data is edited is when it is obviously in error. For example the mode or frequency is corrupt. In these cases if it isn’t obvious what the correct mode should be it will be set to “other”. Or if the bonus criteria for an association is wrong, the whole database will be rescored with the corrected data.

So we try to touch the data as little as possible.

Andy
MM0FMF

simple suggestion:

Add a column to the displayed chaser results table. Next to the “Points” column, add a column “Confirmed Points” which only includes qso’s that have valid corresponding entries in the activator log. Continue to base awards, rankings, etc. on “Points” but display “Confirmed Points” for everyone to just see.

73,
Barry N1EU

In reply to N1EU:

Add a column to the displayed chaser results table. Next to the
“Points” column, add a column “Confirmed Points” which only includes
qso’s that have valid corresponding entries in the activator log.
Continue to base awards, rankings, etc. on “Points” but display
“Confirmed Points” for everyone to just see.

That is a very good idea, maybe the people with phantom QSOs will die of embarrassment.

Colin G8TMV

In reply to G8TMV:

Or click the “unconfirmed only” box.

Andy
MM0FMF

In reply to MM0FMF:

Or click the “unconfirmed only” box.

Can I request a software “bug” such that clicking the “unconfirmed only” box results in only the confirmed contacts being displayed. :wink:

Colin G8TMV

In reply to G8TMV:

If you select “unconfirmed only” you get the entries you need to fix. Probably mainly logging errors/typos etc. So you fix your own chaser typos first, easy stuff.

Then you need to get the activator errors fixed which so far there’s no support for but will be “real soon now”. When you’ve done that you should be left with no unconfirmed QSOs.

Whch means that not clicking the box only shows confirmed QSOs as there’s no uncomfirmed ones left! :slight_smile:

Zarro boogs found as Bugzilla would say.

Being able to alert each other there a logging errors and by having those alerts built into the logging system should enable us to increase the accuracy of the database.

Andy
MM0FMF

In reply to MM0FMF:

Then you need to get the activator errors fixed which so far there’s
no support for but will be “real soon now”. When you’ve done that you
should be left with no unconfirmed QSOs.

Andy
MM0FMF

Andy, whilst this is a great initiative, I can only see one issue - will the activators bother to make those updates?

The problem with the activation log is you have to download it, save it, delete it, modify, upload corrected records. That in itself is not a difficult process, but it will put many people off, especially if they have to do it multiple times.
If there was a way of just editing a single entry, without all the faffing about, there may be more willingness to conform to correction requests.

Is modifying a single activator entry a possibility or is it just too complicated to achieve?

Pete

In reply to G4ISJ:

Is modifying a single activator entry a possibility or is it just too >complicated to achieve?

It’s not possible at present. It’s not too complicated to achieve but it’s considered a low priority as it is possible to fix errors.

Andy
MM0FMF

In reply to OK3EQ:

I feel that the discussion and suggestions regarding the confirmation “star” system has got totally out of hand. This is developing into a witch-hunt against chasers and is a huge over-reaction to the claim that one chaser is suspected of enthusiastically bending the rules and will result in holding up to ridicule the vast majority of dedicated, trustworthy and honourable chasers who would not dream of entering a false claim.

Yes, it would be preferable to have a star for each entry but there are many reasons why an entry submitted by a chaser in good faith does not attract an asterisk. These include:-

Typo errors by activator, including callsigns, date, reference

Activator not registered with SOTA but on a valid summit.

Activator enjoys activating but has no intention of performing the extra work required to enter contacts in the data base.

Activator finds a mistake in the reference sent and later corrects this on the reflector which is not seen by some chasers. Some activators just change the reference on the spots page only.

Two activators taking turns on the Mic/Key with fading sigs and not sending calls very often - easy to log the wrong call.

Any of the above will result in the omission of a star in spite of a 100% valid contact.

An activator has enough work to do on completion of an expedition, entering the log into the data base often takes longer than the expedition. The way things are going there will be a flood of e-mails from chasers demanding minor corrections. Do I really need to send an e-mail to an activator if he has entered me in his log as G3SSH?

The system has worked well as it stands and should be left alone, it allows the chaser who has made a “shaky” QSO (and all chasers have doubts about some contacts as a result of QRM or QSB) to check for confirmation and if missing, check the activators log.

Personally I am not interested in the log of any other chaser. I am only interested in reaching my own goals and will achieve them by my own high standards.

Roy G4SSH