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There continues to be discussion within the contesting community regarding the public posting of logs after the submission deadline for certain events. Are you in favor of contest logs being made public?
Posted: Mar 01, 2009 (234 votes, 7 comments) by AB7E

Yes
No
Undecided
Don't care
(234 votes, 7 comments)

Survey Results

Yes 62% (144)

No 14% (32)

Undecided 6% (14)

Don't care 19% (44)

Survey Comments

open logs

IF you're so afraid that there is some underhanded stuff going on in the judging realm......"DON'T CONTEST"
Posted by NF9A on February 27, 2009

Two Radio Event Signatures

WN3VAW - Have a look at the article 'Two Radio Event Signatures' on Radio Sport Canada written by VE5ZX and CT1BOH. It is based on an analysis 2006 CQWW cw logs.

http://www.radiosport.ca/rsrp/documents/2RE%20signatures.pdf

There are comments on the article by Bob Cox there too.

http://www.radiosport.ca/rsrp/CQWW%20log%20analysis.php

Posted by VE5ZX on February 20, 2009

What Stuff?

There are many contesters trumpeting the alleged advantages of open logs.

Here's the thing, though.

If Open Logs are supposed to reveal any alleged cheating, or improper behaviour, or other "stuff" that is or has been ongoing... either by the contesters and/or log checkers showing favoritism, or whatever...

...and the CQ sponsored contests have had an Open Logs policy for what, about 3 years now...

... where are all the results from people using Open Logs to double-check or triple-check all those Open Logs and all those contest winners?

After all, one would suppose that after having three years of logs for multiple contests on multiple modes for each of these years, all these people who are allegedly using the logs to check for irregularities would have found SOMETHING by now, right?

I've asked this a few times. The answer is always a deafining silence.

Is anyone actually checking Open Logs for funny business? And if they are, then why hasn't anyone to date either:

(a) stated that they couldn't find any problems, which implies that the current system is more or less working as it should...

or

(b) stated that they DID find problems or concerns to be followed up on to fix the problems, deal with the perpetrators if warranted, and improve the integrity of the log checking systems?

Further, if someone is checking the logs, but not making their findings public... what's the point? We're right back where we started, keeping everything under another veil of secrecy for reasons no one seems to dare make public themselves.

So, if the primary purpose of Open Logs is to verify that everything is on the up-and-up... and no one is actually doing the scrutiny that everyone appears to be clamoring for... what's the point?

What I find disturbing is that many on the cq-contest reflector have openly admitted that they used Open Logs to study in specific details how their closest competitors fared in the previous year's running of a particular contest, so that they could try to beat them at their own game. That seems to be the extent of the "research" and "historical data" and "propagation studies" that are being cited as a secondary reason for Open Logs.

If the only practical purpose of Open Logs is to let you see what your competition did... never mind the ethical questions that come to mind, but is THAT a valid reason to make logs Open? Not to check for discrepancies, or catch cheaters, or double check log checkers, or perform some past statistical propagation analysis... but to view in nosy detail the competition.

Sounds like a lousy reason to me.
Posted by WN3VAW on February 19, 2009

From Kb9ygd

Yes i am in favor of our logs being made public as it allows everyone to look at just what happened with the station at contest time and theres a lot less chance of stuff going on under the table.Norman/Kb9ygd.
Posted by kb9ygd on February 14, 2009

Public Contest Logs

This is not a tremendously important issue to me, but if I had my druthers, I would rather not see this practice continue. In the 2008 CQWWDX CW contest, I obtained the log of the 2007 winner in the category I planned to enter and spent quite a bit of time analyzing it. It was extremely useful to me. I made a table showing his rates for each hour of the contest, when he worked rare zones, when his first and last contacts with certain areas took place, etc. I kept this table at hand throughout the contest and consulted it constantly, comparing my hourly performance with his. Having this information kept me in the chair and as a result my score was likely much higher than it would have been without this info. However, I felt that using it was not really fair to the person whose log I was using, as I was able to get a kind of free ride on his experience that he probably spent many years accumulating. If I were the one whose winning log was made public, I would not feel very good about everyone having such easy access to my hard-earned experience.
As to the argument that making logs public will somehow prevent or uncover cheating, there no doubt some truth in this, but to the extent that this is true, it is because the contest sponsors are not doing their job well enough. This is work that contest sponsors ought to be doing, not persons who might not be totally disinterested.

Posted by W1NN on February 10, 2009

Public Contest Logs

I am not a Big Gun Contester but I do try to do better each year. I appreciate gathering propagation and band information by looking at local operator's logs. This can give me insight to be used in my plans for operating various contests.
I will probably never be a Big Gun but this can make me feel good about how I approach a contest operation. I consider those that post their logs as my Contest Elmers. Thanks.
Posted by w6rtw on February 3, 2009

Public Contest Logs

I am not sure what 'secrets' some are trying to hide, but it would seem access to these and historical propagation data might assist one (& others) in future events and propagation studies. Time 'running' and 'searching and pouncing' information is a little sensitive perhaps, but it only gives a history snapshot. I think sharing this and eliminating cheats is what the smaller operators desire and need. It is the masses of these smaller operators that really drive the contests. So I vote to open up the logs.
Posted by WB8GUS on February 2, 2009

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