10 Years of Contests and QSLs

Originally appeared in the Scuttlebutt, newsletter of the Yankee Clipper Contest Club, March 2003.

I moved back to Massachusetts in February 1993. My first log entries from the new station were in the ARRL DX Phone contest of that year. I think I was barefoot to a Hygain multi-band vertical strapped on to a chain link fence in the back yard. Station building commenced in May and the station was fully operational by CQ WW in October.

I decided that the move to the new QTH would also be a great time to convert to full computer logging. I purchased DX4WIN and it became the collection point for all QSOs made in and out of contests.

Of course, we all know that if you make lots of contacts, you will receive lots of QSL cards. I see no need to clutter the QSL bureau system with unwanted cards, so I decided I would only answer QSLs. This enabled me to conduct two long-term experiments: study error rates and study what could be achieved just from incoming cards. The tenth year anniversary seems like a suitable event to present some results.

I love contests. I am not much of a DXer, but I will chase the occasional big expedition and make random DX QSOs around the bands. I do operate lots and lots of contests; the major ones such as CQWW, smaller country contests, and even state QSO Parties. The table below lists the QSO totals by band and mode from March 1, 1993 to March 1, 2003.

Total CW Phone RTTY Other
160 14,520 11,479 3,041
80 19,569 11,147 7,080 1,342
40 40,448 30,866 7,119 2,462 1
20 68,087 36,796 28,051 3,207 33
15 45,083 23,320 18,506 3,253 4
10 27,715 13,332 12,597 1,786
Other 231 88 143
Total 215,653 127,028 76,537 12,050 38

I didn’t really get into RTTY until 1999, but it offered another fun set of contests to play around in. The other column would be a few PSK31 QSOs and some 6 meter activity with a borrowed radio. I just never got interested in the WARC bands because there were no contests there!

99.9% of my QSL cards come in through the W5 QSL Bureau. At one point near the bottom of the sunspot cycle, bureau manager WF5E said I received more cards than anyone else in the bureau! He made me a separate “letter” and shipped cards to me by UPS on a quarterly basis. This still occurs and is a great way to lower the cost.

When a batch of QSLs was received, I would check them against the computer and mark them for printing a label. If a call could be matched with something in the log, I would note the error in the comments field. This was the main goal of my effort – to determine my call copying error rate. If I couldn’t find anything close enough to match, I threw the card away. In retrospect, I wish I had kept statistics on these as well. I suspect many of them were people who confused my call with KZ5D.

The results of the QSL error study are presented below. These include both my operation and those of various guest ops. They correspond extremely well with the typical error range of the contest log checking (UBN or LCR) reports. This clearly demonstrates just how good the computerized log checking process has become.

QSLs Errors Error %
 Mix  26184  351  1.3%
 Phone  11843  125  1.1%
 CW  12909  214  1.7%
 RTTY  1415  12  0.8%

Note: Since I was only looking at incoming cards where the other station had my call correct, the experiment is only measuring a portion of the possible errors. Errors made in the other station’s log are not discovered.

Since I was already in a QSL counting mode, I looked at some other interesting statistics from of this process.

Did you know you could get to 5BDXCC if you work enough people and have enough patience? I am only 3 cards short on 80m. My DXCC totals just from cards received are shown below.

Worked Confirmed
Mixed 315 186
Phone 289 149
CW 299 156
160 145 61
80 196 97
40 270 130
20 289 148
15 283 144
10 243 104

I don’t receive many cards from the USA, so 5BWAS is not doing as well.

Worked Confirmed
Mixed 315 186
Phone 289 149
CW 299 156
160 145 61
80 196 97
40 270 130
20 289 148
15 283 144
10 243 104

Another thing I have always wondered about is how long does it take before you have received all the cards you are going to get? The table below shows the QSOs made and corresponding QSL receipts for each calendar year.

Year QSOs QSLs % Cfmd
1993 9,870 1,388 14.1%
1994 15,845 2,407 15.2%
1995 22,518 4,012 17.8%
1996 21,347 3,279 15.4%
1997 21,846 3,108 14.2%
1998 20,669 3,024 14.6%
1999 20,529 2,834 13.8%
2000 22,883 2,901 12.7%
2001 26,906 2,253 8.4%
2002 27,119 973 3.6%
2003 6,121 5 0.1%
Total 215,653 26,184 12.1%

The average QSL rate is steady around 14 to 15%. It drops in 2000 and beyond because there are still incoming cards for this period that have not been received yet. Does this constant represent an approximation of the new participants in contesting each year?

About 5000 to 8000 of the contacts each year were made by guest ops and are included in the above. There are 4000 QSOs made with the YCCC club call AJ1I in WPX CW contests that are not included.

So where do these cards come from? What countries are the most prolific QSLers? The answers, at least for my log, are below. These 33 countries represent over 87% of the total QSLs received.

Country

QSOs

QSLs

% Cfmd

EA

5238

1852

35.4%

JA

4852

1630

33.6%

ON

2751

894

32.5%

I

11427

3265

28.6%

DL 20493 5668 27.7%
HB 1663 354 21.3%
PA 2665 540 20.3%
S5 4115 719 17.5%
LA 1380 229 16.6%
OH 3585 593 16.5%
CT 824 127 15.4%
F 6606 995 15.1%
HA 4285 639 14.9%
OK 8073 1198 14.8%
SP 6448 954 14.8%
9A 2310 334 14.5%
PY 1200 157 13.1%
SM 3248 378 11.6%
UA 8416 929 11.0%
OM 2396 204 8.5%
YU 3586 302 8.4%
UA9 2431 163 6.7%
LU 1941 128 6.6%
EI 718 45 6.3%
YO 1369 75 5.5%
G 9661 514 5.3%
UR 6378 317 5.0%
LY 2076 93 4.5%
GM 1296 53 4.1%
LZ 1993 71 3.6%
VE 4415 154 3.5%
K 50633 437 0.9%

Japan and Germany are expected, but Spain and Belgium were surprises. I think Belgium is helped by the 100% contest QSLing of ON4UN under all of his OT*T calls. Spain and Italy show the QSL rate that a country with lots of new hams can generate.

At the lower end of the list, we see countries that are less affluent or that don’t find another USA QSL card that compelling.

Now we can determine the cost benefit ratio of preemptive QSLing. On one hand, you print out the labels and the QSL responsibility is dispatched in one shot. On the other, you waste about 85% of your QSLs (i.e., the other guy didn’t want one).

Of course, it takes time to check the incoming cards against the log, but I find that a fun way to appreciate each card and to learn more about the kinds of errors I am making.

The numbers above also give a small indication of what the new ARRL Logbook of the World (LOTW) concept is going to provide. We will have access to a much higher level of instant confirmations, but with 1.5 to 2% (or higher!) error rates in the data.

I can’t wait to see what the next 10 years will bring!