Using the
augmented public logs of the
CQ WW contests, one of the many analyses that can easily be performed is to see which entrants cause the largest number of NIL (Not-In-Log) strikes against stations who have logged them.
I should make it clear from the outset that NILs can and do occur naturally in contests. A typical instance would be when station A is CQing and is called by stations B and C simultaneously. Station A goes back to station B, but station C, for whatever reason, thinks that station A has come back to him. The common end result is that station A logs station B, but both stations B and C log station A. This will cause a NIL strike against station C -- this is a legitimate NIL strike, because station C never heard his call transmitted by station A, there was no QSO between those two stations, and station C should never have logged the non-existent QSO.
NILs, though, have occasionally been used as a weapon when a station deliberately does not log a perfectly valid QSO: this has no cost to the station that omits the QSO, but can cause a penalty (and perhaps loss of a multiplier or QSO points) against the station that he did not log.
Because of the way that scoring works in CQ WW, this behaviour is particularly pernicious in the case of intra-W QSOs (
i.e., QSOs between two US stations). Intra-W QSOs are worth no points, but they
do provide multipliers. As QSOs aren't worth any points, it is frowned on for an American station to make more than a handful of QSOs with other Ws, to obtain the necessary multipliers, as the calling station is generally wasting the time of the called station while he obtains the needed mult. The result of this is that if a W station does not log all W QSOs, he is likely depriving the other stations of necessary mults, as they will often not take out insurance QSOs to be sure of the mult, not wanting to waste the time of another station. Failure to log the QSO gives the station that does so a competitive advantage, as it therefore deprives other stations of a legitimately-worked mult, and causes penalties to be applied to the innocent parties -- at no cost to himself.
So I thought that it might be instructive to look at the public CQ WW logs to see which stations cause the largest numbers of NILs to be applied against stations who have claimed a QSO with them. (I call a NIL that is applied to the
other station's log a reverse NIL, or rNIL.)
I made a couple of small adjustments to the basic idea outlined above:
- I required a minimum of 50 appearances in other stations' logs for a station to be included in the analysis (25 appearances in the case of purely intra-W QSOs);
- I removed all stations for which the analysis showed a 100% rNIL rate: this rate almost certainly occurred because of some basic error in the station's log, such as submitting a log that used a different callsign from the one actually used in the contest.
The code to perform the analysis is available
here (feel free to let me know of bugs :-)). Below are the results of running this code against the logs for 2005.
2005 SSB:
| Callsign |
Total rQSOs |
Total rNILs |
| HK3JJH |
1820 |
1790 |
| M7Z |
1242 |
1166 |
| EA1BVP |
1957 |
972 |
| IR8P |
934 |
927 |
| UU7J |
4518 |
837 |
| SP8IMG |
1103 |
834 |
| OR5N |
678 |
668 |
| JA6GCE |
770 |
660 |
| IZ8DPL |
678 |
643 |
| RU6MM |
613 |
609 |
| Callsign |
Total rQSOs |
Total rNILs |
% rNILs |
| IT9RBW |
383 |
382 |
99.7 |
| RU6MM |
613 |
609 |
99.3 |
| IR8P |
934 |
927 |
99.3 |
| DL5MK |
132 |
131 |
99.2 |
| W7QDM |
114 |
113 |
99.1 |
| TA0U |
393 |
389 |
99.0 |
| YB0AI |
563 |
555 |
98.6 |
| OR5N |
678 |
668 |
98.5 |
| FR1HZ |
581 |
572 |
98.5 |
| 9A4RV |
190 |
187 |
98.4 |
| Callsign |
Total rQSOs with Ws |
rNILs against Ws |
| KC1XX |
139 |
22 |
| N2IC |
91 |
17 |
| N3RS |
67 |
15 |
| NQ4I |
247 |
14 |
| W4MYA |
84 |
12 |
| W0AIH |
136 |
11 |
| W3LPL |
183 |
11 |
| WB9Z |
38 |
11 |
| K3LR |
226 |
10 |
| W7WA |
30 |
10 |
| Callsign |
Total rQSOs with Ws |
Total rNILs against Ws |
% rNILs against Ws |
| W7WA |
30 |
10 |
33.3 |
| K5NZ |
25 |
8 |
32.0 |
| WB9Z |
38 |
11 |
28.9 |
| NE3F |
25 |
6 |
24.0 |
| N3RS |
67 |
15 |
22.4 |
| N2IC |
91 |
17 |
18.7 |
| KC1XX |
139 |
22 |
15.8 |
| W9RE |
32 |
5 |
15.6 |
| W6YI |
26 |
4 |
15.4 |
| W4MYA |
84 |
12 |
14.3 |
2005 CW:
| Callsign |
Total rQSOs |
Total rNILs |
| J88DR |
1734 |
1706 |
| SM7YEA |
1496 |
1488 |
| OJ0B |
2126 |
824 |
| ZY7C |
2316 |
715 |
| UN6T |
674 |
672 |
| RK9CR |
666 |
631 |
| W3BGN |
1648 |
611 |
| Z37M |
3983 |
605 |
| KT1V |
2557 |
550 |
| S54A |
973 |
545 |
| Callsign |
Total rQSOs |
Total rNILs |
% rNILs |
| UN6T |
674 |
672 |
99.7 |
| W4ZW |
329 |
328 |
99.7 |
| SM7YEA |
1496 |
1488 |
99.5 |
| PV8AZ |
82 |
81 |
98.8 |
| S52P |
389 |
384 |
98.7 |
| PY8MGB |
457 |
451 |
98.7 |
| SP9UOP |
204 |
201 |
98.5 |
| J88DR |
1734 |
1706 |
98.4 |
| W1WFZ |
176 |
172 |
97.7 |
| K1OZ |
66 |
64 |
97.0 |
| Callsign |
Total rQSOs with Ws |
rNILs against Ws |
| W5UN |
34 |
27 |
| K9NS |
181 |
25 |
| NQ4I |
229 |
12 |
| K3LR |
170 |
11 |
| K1TTT |
131 |
7 |
| K1RX |
125 |
7 |
| KT1V |
37 |
7 |
| K5GO |
171 |
6 |
| K1AR |
55 |
6 |
| W5KFT |
66 |
6 |
| Callsign |
Total rQSOs with Ws |
Total rNILs against Ws |
% rNILs against Ws |
| W5UN |
34 |
27 |
79.4 |
| K2QMF |
25 |
5 |
20.0 |
| KT1V |
37 |
7 |
18.9 |
| W3BGN |
25 |
4 |
16.0 |
| K9NS |
181 |
25 |
13.8 |
| K0EU |
26 |
3 |
11.5 |
| W2RE |
27 |
3 |
11.1 |
| K1AR |
55 |
6 |
10.9 |
| K2LE |
47 |
5 |
10.6 |
| K4XS |
40 |
4 |
10.0 |
A word about these old logs: they contain many formatting and other errors compared to modern logs (for example, the "zones" field might contain serial numbers, even though the correct zone was actually transmitted), so many of the results should not be taken at face value. For example, the second and sixth tables above indicate an unrealistic percentage of rNILs from all the stations in the table. On the other hand, the large difference between W5UN and all the other lines in the final table suggests that one might want to investigate the cause, if one were interested. Generally speaking, and especially in these old, low-quality logs, it's a good idea to focus on what appear to be anomalous stations, rather than attaching too much credence to the raw numbers in the tables.
(If one suspected a particular station of purposefully failing to log QSOs, several statistical approaches suggest themselves. One presumes that nowadays the contest committee would quickly resolve the issue by requesting the required audio recording of the contest from the suspected station.)
