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Çѱ¹ DX Å«ÀÜÄ¡ 2000

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DXCC CARD CHECKING in KOREA

From: Fred Laun K3ZO "aalaun@ibm.net"
To: nc1l@arrl.org
Cc: n7ng@arrl.org; centaurs@hitel.net
Sent: Friday, December 08, 2000 10:11 PM
Subject: DXCC card checking in Korea

Hi Bill:

FYI here is an advance copy of my cover letter accompanying the Korean DXCC
applications which should go out to you on Friday.

73, Fred 


                                 Fred Laun, K3ZO
                                 P. O. Box 97
                                 Temple Hills, MD 20757-0097
                                 Dec. 7, 2000


Wilfred G. Moore, NC1L
DXCC Desk
American Radio Relay League
225 Main Street
Newington, CT 06111

Dear Bill:

I arrived back from my trip to Korea and Thailand yesterday, and have 
been busily copying and collating the DXCC applications from the 
Korean portion of the trip ever since.  Accompanying this letter, 
which is being sent via USPS Priority Mail/Certified, you will find: 

1) A table listing all of the applications and describing each.  

2) My personal check for USD 1249.35 representing the total of the 
fees collected from applicants in Korea.

3) The individual applications, individually stapled, sorted in the 
same order as the table mentioned in Point (1) above.

For your information I provide herewith a summary of the Korean 
portion of the trip, including some explanations of methodology which 
may be useful in explaining my notations on the DXCC record sheets.

Due to a combination of poor flight scheduling on my part and a flight 
delay of 18 hours in our scheduled flight from Narita, Japan, to 
Seoul, I arrived at the two-day Convention only at about 4 PM on the 
first day, Saturday November 5.  I was presented with a total of 42 
applications, 41 of which were accepted for card checking and 
forwarding to HQ.

One application -- by HL3VQ -- which included a 
large number of QSOs, was rejected with the applicant's full 
understanding because in my judgement it would have taken too long to 
process given the time constraints we were working under.  Basically 
the applicant used a program (such as that which can be found on 
HL1KIS' Web site) to go through the applicant's computerized log and 
automatically fill out the application and record sheets with the 
necessary QSOs.  Unfortunately the applicant failed to match the QSLs 
he was submitting with the QSOs selected by the program, and it 
quickly became apparent that a significant number of the QSLs 
submitted did not match the QSOs listed on the applicant's record 
sheets.  In particular, while the computer program had correctly 
selected QSOs made only in the last 10 calendar years so that all the 
QSOs were field checkable, many of the QSLs submitted by the applicant 
were for QSOs that had taken place more than 10 calendar years 
previous.  Though considerable time was spent working on this 
application, the applicant was not charged fees since ultimately his 
application was rejected for submission to HQ.             

I would like to point out that the KDXC was very well organized and 
had made excellent preparations for the card checking portion of the 
program.  In particular, KDXC official Lee, DS1BHE, did a magnificent 
job of pre-sorting the applications and worked hand-in-glove with my 
XYL Somporn and myself to make it possible to handle all of the 
applications within the severe time constraints under which we were 
operating.  

We began checking applications at 7:30 PM Saturday, worked straight 
through to 3:30 AM Sunday, resumed checking applications at 7:30 AM 
Sunday and worked straight through until 2:00 PM Sunday.  DS1BHE held 
all the applications from Seoul-area hams over until we returned to 
Seoul Sunday evening, and we resumed checking applications at 9:30 PM 
Sunday night, finally completing work on all applications at 3:30 AM 
Monday morning.  At 6:30 AM that same morning we were up and on our 
way to the airport for our mid-morning flight to Bangkok.  Lee, 
DS1BHE, took a room in our hotel that night so that he could more 
easily give us a ride to the airport, and worked with us there in 
order to change the Korean currency we had collected from the 
applicants into the correct amount of US currency for submission to 
HQ.  

As we worked on the first few applications we settled upon a routine 
that made our operations as efficient as possible under the 
circumstances.  Lee would organize the applications, call the 
applicant into the room so he could watch his cards being checked, 
check the applicant's pile of cards so that the order matched the 
listing on his record sheets, and feed me the cards one by one for my 
checking.  Meanwhile, my XYL Somporn with calculator in hand would 
check the applicant's application form, compute the amount of Korean 
Won necessary to equal the USD fee amount required of each applicant, 
collect the funds and record them on the form and on a separate 
accounting sheet we made up.  She would make certain the applicant had 
filled in all required portions of the form, and in particular get 
each applicant's e-mail address if he had one, since most applicants 
used an older form which did not have a line for entry of the e-mail 
address.  Once I had checked the applicant's cards I would sign his 
application form before going on to the next applicant.

DS1BHE had obviously studied the DXCC application procedures as 
described on the ARRL Web Site very carefully, and as a result 
correctly noted that in some cases I was charging an incorrect fee 
amount.  This was rectified after the first few applications but 
unfortunately by then some of the applicants had left for home, so 
KDXC provided the funds to cover the shortfall from those applicants 
from its treasury, and would bill the members in question later.  As 
we were changing money at the airport it also became apparent that 
currency fluctuations over the weekend had invalidated the exchange 
rate figure we had been working with and that the amount when changed 
into dollars was short by $30 or $40 the dollar amount needed to fully 
fund the applications.  DS1BHE after consulting with KDXC official 
HL1XP by cell phone agreed to advance funds from the KDXC treasury on 
the spot to cover the shortfall.  This willingness to bend over 
backwards to lessen our administrative workload was much appreciated.

DS1BHE, a physics instructor by profession, quickly calculated that my 
QSL checking rate average is 100 QSLs in 15 minutes.  He was concerned 
that at this rate we would never get through all the applications.  
However, contester that I may be, I nevertheless refused to increase 
my checking rate, feeling that were I to do so I would not be 
exercising the requisite care I feel is necessary to fully meet the 
responsibilities assumed by a DXCC card checker when one takes on this 
very serious obligation.  

Herewith I will describe the notations I made on the record sheets as 
I checked the cards in question:

1) A black checkmark behind the entry means that the QSO/QSL met the 
DXCC requirements in every respect.

2) In some cases, particularly where a DXpedition used multiple 
callsigns and used the same QSL blanks to confirm QSOs for all of 
those callsigns, the applicant would list one callsign, when upon 
checking I determined that the QSO, entirely valid, had in fact been 
made with a station using a different call than that listed by the 
applicant.  In such cases I would direct the applicant to change the 
callsign listed to the one actually worked, and to initial the 
correction to indicate that it was the applicant himself who actually 
made the change.

3) Occasionally the applicant would claim the wrong entity for the QSO 
in question.  This was particularly true in cases such as that of 
9M6OO where the same callsign had been used quite legitimately from 
two different entities.  In such cases I would direct the applicant to 
change the entity name on his form and initial the change to indicate 
that the applicant had made the change himself.

4) While I was aware as I checked cards that some of those submitted, 
particularly those confirming QSOs with 7O1YGF, would probably be 
invalidated by HQ, I nevertheless certified the QSLs as valid, since 
it is not the field checker's responsibility to know whether the 
credentials of a particular DXpedition have passed muster or not at 
the time at which the card is being checked.   In such cases I 
explained informally to the applicant that the QSO would probably 
ultimately be rejected as invalid for DXCC purposes but that I had no 
brief to invalidate it under the responsibilities given field 
checkers.

5) I used the following notations (in parentheses) when I struck out 
individual QSOs with the green pen:

WITHDRAWN:

It quickly became apparent that some applicants were not aware that 
field checkers are not allowed to check QSLs for QSOs more than 10 
calendar years old (and to a much lesser extent were not aware that we 
cannot check 160 meter cards).  Since checking their applications as 
presented would waste time we could not afford, I would ask the 
applicant in such cases to go back over his record sheets and strike 
out the QSOs in question, and remove the QSLs in question from his 
pile.  I would proceed to check somebody else's cards while he was 
correcting his record sheets.  When the applicant presented his 
modified record sheets with the QSOs in question stricken out, I would 
mark them as (withdrawn) and not include those QSOs in the amount on 
which fees were based since I ended up not checking the cards in 
question.

ENTITY NOT SHOWN/ENTITY NOT GIVEN/ENTITY MISSING

In a surprising number of cases I discovered that submitted QSLs did 
not meet the criterion of DXCC rules Section I point 4 to the effect 
that: "Confirmation data...must include...the Entity name as shown in 
the DXCC list..."  In such cases I have noted (entity not shown) or 
(entity not given) in parentheses.  I was quite strict in my 
interpretation of this rule, and one applicant pointed out that the 
paragraph goes on to say: "Confirmations not containing all required 
information MAY (my emphasis) be rejected,"  implicitly giving the 
card checker latitude to use common sense in his actions on this 
point.  

Therefore I am asking for guidance on how strictly I should enforce 
this rule in the future.  I found that several operators in 
places like Wales, Denmark, Guernsey, etc, did not have their entity 
name on their card but yet as a practical matter it was quite clear 
that the operation indeed took place from the entity claimed.  On the 
other hand, it seems to me that the field checker should not be 
required to know exactly which IOTA islands are in Central Kiribati, 
for example, as opposed to West Kiribati, and that in such instances 
it is vital that the correct DXCC entity name be given on the card.  
It appears that a growing number of IOTA DXpeditioneers do not realize 
that their QSLs will be submitted for DXCC credits by recipients and 
that their use will not be limited to IOTA submissions.

WRONG CALL/CALLSIGN ERROR/CALLSIGN WRITTEN OVER/BUSTED CALL

These were the errors I most expected to find and yet they were 
relatively few.  It is clear that applicants do check carefully for 
this particular error and not many such cards are presented for 
checking.  I used variously (wrong call), (callsign error) or 
(callsign written over) to best describe the specific situation 
encountered.                                         

WRONG ENTITY/DUPE/ACTUAL ENTITY IS ------

These indications were used when an applicant mistakenly provided two 
different cards for the same entity, claimed the wrong entity when in 
fact the card was for a different entity for which the applicant had 
already received credit, or where the applicant in good faith 
misinterpreted the information on a QSL and mistakenly came up with 
the wrong entity.

NOT FIELD CHECKABLE

There were occasions where an applicant presented a generally very 
clean record sheet but inadvertently included one or two QSOs that 
were not field checkable.  In such cases I did not ask the applicant 
to go back over his record sheets and strike out the QSOs in question 
and resubmit to me, but simply struck out the QSO myself with this 
notation.

In closing, I believe that the foregoing account provides a useful 
background to you as you look over the results of my work.  I believe 
that the increasing availability of the field checking option to DXCC 
applicants is inducing many overseas operators to participate in the 
program who otherwise would not have done so.  I was struck by the 
fact that a number of veteran Korean DXers have submitted herein DXCC 
applications for the very first time.  I am happy to have been able in 
some small part to facilitate this arrangement and wish to thank you 
and Wayne for your flexibility in making it possible for me to do so.

I also checked cards and accepted applications during my three weeks 
in Thailand.  The applications there however were much fewer in number 
and will be submitted to you next week in a similar format.


                                       73,


                              Alfred A. (Fred) Laun, III
                                    K3ZO
                              DXCC Field Checker