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
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