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