Occasionally, I like to review the Log-Checking Reports to see how I’m doing in the effort to turn in a clean log. It probably should be a part of my pre- or post-contest checklist. Here’s what I found, along with suggestions on improving these results in VHF contests, which, for me, have become digital contests.

K5ND Current Log-Checking Results

While the June 2023 VHF Contest caught my full attention, I downloaded all the LCRs currently available on the ARRL Contest website. You need to enter your call sign, and all the available log-checking reports will be listed. Then, select those you want, and they will be emailed to you. Here are the relevant statistics on my reports.

2022 June VHF Contest, West Texas Rover: 1% error rate, 3.8% score reduction. This included two calls not in the log (NIL), four duplicates removed, and two lost multipliers. Note: there is no penalty for duplicates; the QSOs are removed.
2022 September VHF Contest, North Texas Single Op, Low Power: 2.2% error rate, 4.4% score reduction. There was one call not-in-log and one duplicate.
2023 January VHF Contest, North Texas Single Op, High Power: golden log without errors. Of course, it’s somewhat more manageable when you only have 54 QSOs.
2023 June VHF Contest, North Texas Single Op, High Power: 3.4% error rate, 8.2% score reduction. Ouch! This was from 16 calls not in the log, 3 incorrect calls, and 25 duplicates removed.
2023 September VHF Contest, North Texas Single Op, High Power: 1.1% error rate, 2.3% score reduction. Two calls were not in the log, and five duplicates were removed.

I’ll note that none of these score adjustments resulted in a lower ranking in the respective contest. However, that June 2023 result drove some further investigation.

Log-Checking Report Goals

Here’s what Doug Grant, K1DG, wrote in his National Contest Journal July/August 2019 article, What You Can Learn from Your Log-Checking Report.

The log-checking processes in place in the major contests work very well. They are not perfect, but correctly and impartially determine the order of finish. While good contacts are occasionally removed from a log, in most cases the processes err on the side of leniency and operators occasionally get credit for bad contacts.

That’s what I observed from the review documented earlier. If you want to explore this further, read Doug’s full article. He does a superb job of reviewing an HF contest recording and finding the source of every single error. Plus, he finds some missed errors, or better said, where the log-checking software gave the operator the benefit of the doubt.

As a reference point, here are the log-checking penalties documented in the ARRL VHF Contest Rules.

Logs are cross-checked using custom software and human judgment.
LGCK.1. Duplicate contacts are removed with no additional scoring penalty.
LGCK.2. Contacts with call sign errors (“Busted”) or that are not found in the corresponding log (“NIL”) are removed from the log, and an additional scoring penalty of the QSO point value of that contact is assessed.
LGCK.3. Contacts with an incorrectly received exchange are removed with no additional scoring penalty.

Digital Contests and Not-in-Log Errors

In a National Contest Journal May/June 2020 article titled FT4 and FT8 Contesting, Ed Muns, W0YK, discusses the plague of not-in-log QSOs. He’s done some analysis of not-in-log QSOs and finds that in recent RTTY contests, the NIL rate was around 2%. However, for FT4 and FT8 contests, it ranged from 4.6% to 5.4%. I guess my 3.4% error rate in the June 2023 VHF contest wasn’t all that bad.

Ed notes explicitly that the message exchange with WSJT modes is ripe for this type of error. This is primarily due to the automated logging of a QSO when the station sends RR73 and then moves on without confirming that the message was received. I love his quote: “Blind reliance on a software package’s automatic logging features is never a good strategy.”

Ed provided some specific recommendations to reduce the NILs in your contest logs.

Always log a QSO when you have received RRR, RR73, or 73.
Log a QSO when you send RR73 when you are confident it will be copied. Be sure to watch for any indication it was not copied. For example, if they send the contest exchange again rather than a confirming 73.
Learn to use the TX3, TX4, and TX5 messages to continue the QSO until the 73 is received.

Further Log-Checking Report Investigations

When writing the full results article for the 2023 June VHF Contest, I worked with John Kalenowsky, K9JK, to gather more details for the article’s analysis and some further work I’m doing for a deeper-dive presentation. I asked him for his thoughts on what I’d found with my LCR and when I compared them to the public logs. He responded with some extensive insight into my questions.

For example, I found three QSOs tagged for incorrect call signs, which is nearly impossible with WSJT. John found that the log-checking software saw three nearly the same call signs that were not in my log, but K5ND was in their log and assumed the error. That’s a software snag and probably not a big deal.

In my own checking, I found three NIL call signs that submitted incomplete logs. One station submitted a log that didn’t start until well after the QSO in my log. Another apparently edited their log to drop all digital contacts since they were entering an analog-only category. Yet another confirmed our QSO on Logbook of the World, but it wasn’t in their contest log! I have no idea how that happens.

John responded that out-of-entry category QSOs would be dropped by the log-checking software for the station’s score but matched to other stations’ logs. This includes categories restricted to certain bands, like the lower four VHF bands, and single mode-only categories, such as FM-only or analog-only. He further stated that you can enter X-QSO in the Cabrillo log for each entry that doesn’t match the category requirements but is not required.

On a side note, I recall the results of a VHF contest some time ago. Log-checking found that the top scorer in Limited Rover had worked more than 100 QSOs with another rover. This isn’t allowed in this category, so the entry was moved to the Unlimited Rover category. Log-checking is a worthwhile endeavor. That change saw me finishing first rather than second.

K5ND’s Digital Contest Recommendations

I feel many of these digital NIL logs are due to concerns about logging an invalid contact. Read my article Valid QSOs and Online Chat for what is required for a valid contact. Mostly, it’s about sending and receiving the exchange, followed by RRR, which both stations receive.

You’ll find further recommendations in my article Meteor Scatter Propagation: How it Works & Getting on the Air. Here’s the important quote for this discussion:

I strongly suggest using RRR in your sequence rather than RR73. With WSJT, after you’ve sent RR73, it logs the QSO. But with meteor scatter, it’s unlikely that one transmission of RR73 will actually get through. So, you can use RRR as often as needed to get the other station’s confirmation that the QSO is over.

This isn’t a practice contesters would typically want to follow. It just adds another sequence to the QSO. But it should help alleviate NIL problems.

Here are my summary recommendations.

Enter your entire log, not just QSOs eligible for the entry category. Use X-QSO edits for the log if you must.
Use RRR in your exchange rather than RR73.
Log any QSO when you receive RRR, RR73, or 73.
Save your contest All.txt file along with the Cabrillo log.

That last one will be added to my post-contest record keeping. I tried to find the ALL.txt file for the 2023 June Contest but recalled that the laptop I used for that contest had been recycled, and I forgot to move the ALL.txt file. Dang. I could have done still more research…

Well, that’s my thoughts on chasing log-checking reports in the era of VHF digital contesting. As you can tell, it will make for a slightly cleaner log but probably won’t impact your overall contest ranking. Good luck.