CQ WW Director Urges Contesters to Stop Making Post-Contest Log Changes; "Unsportsmanlike"

By Jamie Dupree NS3T  radio-sport.net 
Posted October 20, 2011

As part of the drive to insure "fair play" in ham radio contesting, top officials from the CQ World Wide Contest Committee are asking contesters to end the practice of using outside aid to alter their logs after the contest has ended.

"Your contest result is a measure of your contesting skill," argues CQ WW Contest Committee member Doug Zwiebel KR2Q, who told a recent CQ WW Webinar that it's time to realize that major changes after a contest is considered outside the bounds.

"CQ WW CC considers the use of post contest data sources as unsportsmanlike," read one of the slides in Zwiebel's presentation.

"Part of the CQ WW actions of the Contest Commitee are dealing with unsportsmanlike conduct," added CQ WW CC Director Bob Cox K3EST.

"Fair play is a big part of what we do," Cox added.

In a recent post on the CQ-Contest reflector, Cox drove home the point about post-contest "log cleansing," saying it clearly runs against the Contester's Code of Ethics.

"I will not modify my log after the contest by using additional data sources to correct call sign/exchange errors," the Code reads.

CQ WW CC officials say they consider it wrong to use "data sources such as recordings, call sign data bases" and more - after the contest - to find and correct log errors that otherwise might be detected by the actual log checkers.

Cox again emphasized the tighter time deadlines for submitting logs in the CQ WW DX contests, as the period for submission was tightened last year - in part to speed up the processing of the results, and in part to prevent people from going through their logs with a fine toothed comb to find mistakes.

The SSB contest log deadline is November 21 - basically three weeks after the contest. The CW deadline is December 21.

"If you submit a very competitive log, it will be checked in detail," Cox said in the CQ WW Webinar.

"We're trying to check to make sure verybody receives the proper awards; it's simple, just follow the rules."

And for the CQ WW Contest Committee, that means once the contest is over, your log should not be subject to change in terms of "post-log cleansing."

"The results depend on all of us being honest," said Cox. "Using undeclared help to find QSO's gives an entrant an advantage."