[NLRS] dupe sheet specs

[Dr. Gerald N. Johnson]

On Sat, 2006-09-23 at 12:37 -0500, John P. Toscano wrote:
> 
> Dr. Gerald N. Johnson wrote:
> > Classic dupe sheets contained only call.
> > http://www.arrl.org/contests/forms/dupesht.pdf There's a new dupe sheet
> > for each band and mode. For a rover, that would be at least for each
> > grid. At 10 GHz where moves are sub grid, I'd interpret that to be at
> > each location.
> > 
> > The dupe sheet is not to be made the day after the contest, but is a
> > live part of operating (with paper) with each contact entered as made so
> > that a glance at the dupe sheet can tell if the station has been worked
> > before. Its often faster than computer software, because a glance is
> > faster than typing in a call. For very active contests the dupe sheet is
> > printed on 11 x 17 paper.
> 
> This sort of dupe sheet works well for HF contests, Field Day, and even 
> most VHF/UHF contests except for the existence of rovers.  You need only 
> one sheet, unless different bands count as unique Q's, in which case you 
> need one sheet per band, and unless different modes count as unique Q's 
> (such as CW vs. Phone), in which case the number of sheets doubles.

Yup that dupe sheet was designed for HF contesting. The contest
committee still doesn't understand rovers and 10G progressive contests.
And until they run as a 10G rover they won't, if then.

The fundamental use of the dupe sheet is to prevent time wasting
duplicate contests (on bands where time to log is longer than the
contact and the rates are 150 per hour). Incidentally it prevents
contact stacking, else W1AA would work W1AB every 20 seconds for the
length of the contest and rack up a pretty good score, but maybe not as
good as if there had been some country/state/grid multipliers. A dupe
sheet made by the computer log after the contest doesn't accomplish
either of these goals, it just proves to the log checking entity that
dupes were removed from the logs.
> 
> In a VHF/UHF contest as a rover, operating a few bands from a few 
> locations, the rover could have one sheet or set of sheets per grid/band 
> pair they activate, so that dupes are detected right away.  If there are 
> a lot of bands and a lot of grids, the number of sheets needed goes up 
> dramatically.

That gets tough, though the number of contacts per rove position may not
be so large as to need the 11x17 sheet. In fact for a typical NLRS rover
location the few prefixes that weren't W9 or W0 would fit in the
miscellaneous prefix column and the rest of the dupe sheet could be cut
off and thrown away (or never printed). At least above 6 meters.
> 
> The huge problem for VHF/UHF contests is when the fixed stations work 
> the rovers, because the fixed station that works (for example) 5 
> different rovers, each in 8 different grids, on up to 10 different bands 
> would need to have 8 x 10 = 80 different dupe sheets.  (Maybe even more 
> if the 8 grids activated by Rover "A" weren't the same 8 grids activated 
> by Rover "B" and so on.  If the 5 rovers in this example actually 
> activate a total of 16 different grids among them, and they bring 10 
> bands along, we're now talking 16 x 10 different dupe sheets, most of 
> which will have almost nothing written on them.)

Perhaps the plain call in the dupe sheet is insufficient. How about
entering rover call/6 character grid? Then one uses the same dupe sheet
from the same band/mode/location and still each rove position contact is
identified for dupe checking.

If the dupe sheet is compact (like the 6x8 card I used for FD 2004),
having a separate dupe sheet in the rover for each grid worked from need
not be a great burden, though finding it when returning to a subgrid on
10G the second week of the contest may be a true pain. The HF dupe sheet
is organized by call area and first letter of the suffix to save time
while manually searching. The compact dupe sheet that holds perhaps 80
or 100 calls may not need to be quite so thoroughly organized. Perhaps
only a suffix sort by first letter or groups (like A-C, D-F, etc) is
sufficient for speedy enough entry and searching.
> 
> Even ignoring the rovers, in a VHF/UHF contest where fixed stations 
> worked only fixed stations (for example), if the fixed station ran on 10 
> different bands, they'd need 10 different dupe sheets, which is possible 
> but awkward.

Not so awkward if significantly smaller than 11 x 17. And easier to
handle in the mobile if card stock rather than 16 pound paper.
> 
> In the 10 GHz and Up Cumulative Contest, at least the way we do it 
> around here, the paper dupe sheet kept during the contest becomes 
> totally impractical, because (a) the rovers may activate 30 or more 
> sub-grids over the course of the weekend, and (b) the "fixed" stations 
> usually operate from anywhere from 1 to 4 different fixed locations over 
> the 4 days of the contest, and if EITHER end moves 10 miles or more, 
> that is a new (non-duplicate) location pair.  The only "saving grace" is 
> that most operators work only one band, a few operate two, and up to 
> this point in time, I don't think any of us have gone to more bands than 
> that.  In any case, the number of sheets that would be needed grows out 
> of control.

Well it becomes a major chunk of a $2 bundle of 6 x 8 cards which are
far easier to handle than 11 x 17 sheets. In that 2004 FD activity, I
also kept my log on 6 x 8 cards running two columns per card face. Had I
planned ahead, I might have numbered the log cards sequentially, but I
didn't. So I had to depend on times to get the cards into log order.
> 
> As far as I know, the only dupes we've actually had in the 10G contest 
> occurred when one side was a truly fixed station (KM0T stayed home the 
> whole time), and the rovers activated a sub-grid with him on one day of 
> the weekend, and on another day, activated a different location within 
> the same sub-grid, so it didn't occur to us until later that there was a 
> dupe with him.  We rely on memory and careful site selection to avoid the 
> vast majority of dupes, and the computerized sort & search after the 
> fact works well to catch any remaining ones (if any).

Memory can work, but in an intensive contest (like CQWW with 6m and 2m
open for sporadic E) memory gets thrashed. The computer sort & search
does catch dupes after the fact, but doesn't prevent wasted contacts
during the contest. Probably on 10G contacts don't pile up at rates that
mean a dupe costs against the total number made.
> 
> W0JT

I may be old fashioned (I've only been programming computers for 40
years and using them longer) but I still like doing my logging on paper
(never lost by computer glitches or goofs or battery failure) which
keeps my radio environment much quieter. I still run a straight key, for
me it works fine for several hours of FD at a time, my ears give up
before my fist, but I can't work novices or new hams at 5 wpm. I can't
send that slow but I can approach 30 wpm in spurts, good enough for FD.
Too fast for VHF and up.
-- 
73, Jerry, K0CQ,
All content copyright Dr. Gerald N. Johnson, electrical engineer