Adjudication Principles - 80m, Summer Series and DX Contests

All UKEICC contests use automated (computer-based) adjudication which is based on the following guiding principles:

• A contact is deemed to be good when all of the required data (see below) in its Cabrillo file matches the data in the worked station’s Cabrillo file.
• When a Cabrillo file is submitted by only one of the participants in a contact, the contact is assumed to be good, subject to it not falling foul of the bust call sign checking described below.
• Claimed contacts that can be shown to contain incorrect data or do not have an entry in the second station’s Cabrillo file are awarded penalties.
• Claimed contacts that do not fall within one of the above classifications are awarded zero points.

Adjudication based on the above principles assumes that the information exchanged during the contact is accurately recorded in the Cabrillo file and that what was entered at the keyboard or automatically recorded by the computer logging software was accurately represented in the Cabrillo file. Unfortunately errors occur in both processes. The adjudication software scores the contest based on the information in the Cabrillo file - it has no other knowledge about the contact. Very occasionally, this will result in points not being awarded for contacts that were in fact good. 

A more detailed set of adjudication rules follows :

• In the descriptions below, a QSO record is the information extracted for a single QSO from the Cabrillo file submitted by an entrant.
• In a QSO between two stations which have both submitted a Cabrillo file, station A is awarded points if the sent information as recorded in station B’s QSO record is correctly logged in station A’s QSO record. In addition, the band and time (within 5 minutes) in both QSO records must match.

Exchanged information is :

• Call sign of station B
• Serial number recorded as sent in station B’s QSO record
• District recorded as sent in station B’s QSO record if that station is UK or EI based
• RS/RST reports are ignored.
• In the above example, station B is awarded points for correctly logging the information in stations A’s QSO record. However station B could be awarded penalty points for incorrectly logged information.
• If a contact is claimed with a station which has submitted a Cabrillo file but the entrant’s call sign cannot be found in that file, the contact is marked as ‘Not in Log’ (NIL) and awarded a NIL penalty unless one of the following two ‘bust’ criteria is shown to exist, in which case a ‘bust’ penalty applies :
• A close match to the entrant’s call sign is found in the worked station’s Cabrillo file, and in addition:
• Both QSO records show the same band
• The entrant’s sent serial number is the same as the worked station’s received serial number
• The entrant’s received serial number is the same as the worked station’s sent serial number
• Levenshtein distance (See note 1) of call signs equals 1
• QSO time is within the specified time window
• If the contact was with a UK/EI station, the logged district must match the sent district in the worked station’s QSO record
• An exact match to the entrant’s call sign and QSO record is found in a Cabrillo file submitted by a station whose call sign differs by a Levenshtein distance of 1 or 2 from the entrant’s call sign. The following criteria must also be met :
• Both QSO records show the same band
• The entrant’s sent serial number is the same as the worked station’s received serial number
• The entrant’s received serial number is the same as the worked station’s sent serial number
• The entrant’s call sign matches exactly the call sign recorded in the second station’s QSO record
• QSO time is within the specified time window
• If the contact was with a UK/EI station then the logged district must match the sent district in the worked station’s QSO record.

• If a contact is claimed with a station which has submitted a Cabrillo file but the serial number logged differs from the sent serial number as recorded in the worked station’s QSO record, the contact is marked as ‘bust’ for the entrant and awarded a ‘bust’ penalty. The following criteria must be met :
• Call signs in both QSO records match
• Same band
• Received serial different to worked station’s sent serial
• QSO time within the specified time window
• Note – district codes are not checked.
• If a contact is claimed with an EI/UK station which has submitted a Cabrillo file but the district recorded differs from the sent district as recorded in the worked station’s QSO record, the contact is marked as ‘bust’ for the entrant and awarded a ‘bust’ penalty. The following criteria must be met :
• Call signs in both QSO records match
• Same band
• Received district is different from the worked station’s sent district as recorded in the worked station’s QSO record
• QSO time within the specified time window.
• For a contact where the amateur band (derived from the frequency in the QSO record) differs in the two submitted QSO records, both stations are awarded zero points for the QSO. No penalties are awarded. There is currently no checking of frequency within a band.
• A QSO record where the worked station’s call sign is the same as the entrant’s is awarded zero points and no penalty. Entering your own call sign is a valid technique for correcting a logging mistake quickly.
• There are no penalties for duplicate (dupe) QSOs (same call and band) as long as one of the QSO records is good (point scoring). If none of the dupe QSOs are good, a single penalty is awarded based on the error incurred in the first of the duplicate QSO records.
• If a duplicate QSO records exists with a station which hasn't submitted a Cabrillo file, the first QSO is assumed valid.
• A NIL that is also a dupe of a valid QSO is classed as a dupe, not a NIL.
• When both the entrant and the worked station submit Cabrillo files, the time in both QSO records must match to within plus or minus 5 minutes. If not, both entrants get zero points for the QSO.
• An entrant claiming a contact before the start of or after the end of the contest receives zero points for the contact. The other station is awarded normal QSO points as long as the contact is within the 5 minute time window and is otherwise good.
• A QSO record with an incorrect mode is awarded zero points for the contact. The other station is awarded normal QSO points as long as the contact is otherwise good.
• The QSO record of a UK/EI entrant must contain a valid sent district in order to be credited with points for a contact. If not, the contact is awarded zero points unless it is shown to be bust or NIL.
• A QSO record for a contact with a UK/EI station where no received district is recorded is awarded zero points unless it is shown to be a bust or NIL.
• A UK/EI station whose QSO record shows an invalid sent district is awarded zero points for the QSO. But if the worked station’s QSO record shows a received district matching the entrant’s invalid district, the worked station is awarded QSO points if the contact is otherwise good.
• A 12-hour entry which exceeds the 12-hour operating period has all subsequent QSO points and multipliers disallowed. The entrant suffers no further penalties. Credits and penalties are given for all good QSOs up to the 12-hour limit.
• Virtual logs are created for all non entrants and used for checking the validity of any QSOs with the non entrant.
• Entrants logging a receiver serial number that is unrealistic considering the trend of serial numbers being reported from the non entrant at that time are awarded zero points.
• Entrants logging an unrealistic districts code from UK/EI non entrants stations are awarded zero points.
• Adjudication uses the most up-to-date (at start of contest) Amateur Radio Country Files available at http://www.country-files.com/ for mapping call signs to country and continent.
• Adjudication uses the list of UK/EI district codes published in the rules to map call signs to district.
• QSO records that do not conform to the Cabrillo file template specified in the rules are awarded zero points. The adjudication software attempts to extract useful data from a broken QSO record to enable contacts to be cross checked, but broken records may result in penalties being awarded to other stations.
• Scoring
• A QSO record awarded zero points or penalty points dfoes not qualify for DXCC or District multipliers.
• When a QSO record contains multiple verifiable errors, penalty points are awarded at a level consistent with the most severe error
• Penalty points are removed from the QSO points total before the DXCC/district multiplier is applied.
• No entrant is given a negative score - minimum is zero.

Note 1. The Levenshtein distance between two words is the minimum number of single-character edits (i.e. insertions, deletions or substitutions) required to change one word into the other. It is named after Vladimir Levenshtein, who studied this distance in 1965.

 

Version 1.0.5 20/01/2020