CQ WW Logs Now Open to All; What Do They Really Reveal?

By Jamie Dupree NS3T 

For years there has been a fairly healthy debate within the ham radio contest community about making logs public for all to see after a contest is judged.

Now that debate is over for the CQ WW contests, as the contest committee followed through on their change of heart and released hundreds of logs on the internet, for all of us to paw through.

The SSB logs are available at cqww.com/ssblogs, while the CW logs can be reviewed at cqww.com/cwlogs.

But now that the information is available, what are you going to do with it? What can you really learn by going through all these logs?

From a quick survey of contesters, it's clear some could care less and some are already delving deep into the details.

"I think it is a good idea to have the logs open," says Tim Duffy K3LR, "but I respect those that do not."

"I guess I'm OK with it," says Ken Claerbout K4ZW, but it does seem a little awkward having it exposed for the world to see."

Claerbout says he's always given his log to anyone who has asked for it in the past. "I do think strategic decisions can be made from the information and that's maybe the one area where I'm a little uneasy with having my log open to everyone."

Now that you can access all that information, what do you do with it?

"The info can be used in lots of ways," says Rich DiDonna NN3W. "You can look at competing scores to see where you did well, and where you blew it. This will help you improve yourself in future years."

DiDonna says it can also really help someone who is going on a DXpedition, or just in a much different location than normal, especially when it comes to the peculiarities of propagation.

For example, DiDonna tells radio-sport.net that a lot of log comparisons are already underway. "We've found a WIDE divergence in operating styles between P40W and EA9LZ (the #1 and #2 single op high power scores.)"

"First, P40W rarely does SO2R. Second, we've found that over 65% of his QSO's were with callsigns issued by the FCC...By contrast, EA9LZ worked only about 20% FCC issued callsign stations" said DiDonna.

As for P40W, aka John Crovelli W2GD, "I have no problem whatsoever with the release of raw logs for viewing," says the number one operator in the radio-sport.net standings. "I've exchanged logs with others for years."

Crovelli told radio-sport.net that there is a lot to be gleaned from the logs of your peers.

"Newer (and more experienced) competitors, if they do the right analysis, will see how bands are selected, when openings to various parts of the world occur, and get an idea of what techniques are used to generate rate, maximize multipliers, etc." says Crovelli.

"There is much to be learned looking over the high scoring logs," he adds.

Crovelli is certainly correct on that point. Just take the battle for top spot in the US last year for single operator high power, which pitted NN3W against K4ZW in CQ WW SSB.

One thing that was readily apparent was that both operators, with high power and great antenna systems could hardly get a run going in the first five hours of the contest.

"Europeans are busy working each other on 40 and 80 so it's difficult to get a run established," says Claerbout K4ZW.

"I've graphed out all the numbers between K4ZW and myself" said DiDonna NN3W. "The first thing that is apparent is that I need to work on lowbanding.... His QSO peaks are in the evening, and then I claw back during the day."

The hardest thing was running split on 80 and doing SO2R on 40 at the same time (also split.) Very taxing," said DiDonna.

One thing open logs will also do is get a huge amount of data in the hands of people who want to look for packet cheaters, to see who was "unassisted" - but also fast to work a spotted station.

The data is there for you to look at - and CQ WW SSB is now only four months away.