VHF Field Day 2023 – Claimed Scores Analysis

VHF Field Day 2023

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The following is just a bit of fun, it should not be regarded as complete or accurate but merely an indication of how the Field Day weekend panned out. It is no more accurate than the famous “swingometer” that features on election night TV broadcasts.

For VHF Field Day, the deadline for submitting Logs is 7 days after the contest closes. During that 7 day period those interested can see:

• Who has submitted contest or check logs,
• What bands they have entered logs for, and
• Which class they have entered.

Beyond that limited information nothing can be discerned in terms of performance such as number of QSOs, Points claimed, Best DX etc. After the 7 day submission period has expired the adjudicators make available the “claimed” scores of each participant. This post takes a look at these claims and suggests one possible outcome based on our own claimed performance.

It must be remembered that this assessment is based on our and others “claimed” scores and have not been ratified or adjudicated. Actual scores are usually lower than claimed due to logging errors, with our error rates typically running in the 5% – 15% range over past years.

50MHz Claimed Scores

50MHz Claimed Scores

What a great result! Congratulations to the 50MHz team which comprised: Mark M0SKV basically on his own operating and logging. This is a great position, we’re nearly 6000 points clear of Bath and District ARC in second place; so even with a 10% error rate we’ll remain in top slot.

70MHz Claimed Scores

So we’re lower down the table this time. Annoyingly we are lower than Bath and District ARC this time but can take consolation from the fact that although they had 33% more contacts than us they only scored 10% more points than we did so we were working more valuable stations than they were. Interesting that the lowest 5 stations are covered by only 1700 points but Telford and District ARS managed to score fully 3200 points more than the second place station.

Hopefully our logging is reasonably accurate, a 10% loss could drop us 200 points below Rippon unless they have losses too.

144MHz Claimed Scores

Not our best result on 2m, but by no means our worst. We’ve regularly finished around 3rd – 4th on this band in previous years. More damaging to us, as will be seen later in this post is that the winning entry from Northern Fells Contest group managed 18000 points more than us. That’s 128% more points off only 28% more contacts. The second place station actually had more QSOs that the Northern Fells group but even they were 8600 points behind them.

A loss of 10% could drop us below Fareham and District ARC but should keep us above Ripon and District ARS.

432MHz Claimed Scores

We didn’t operate on 432MHz (70cm).

1300MHz Claimed Scores

We didn’t operate on 1300MHz (23cm)

The contest scoring uses a technique known as “normalisation”, which in essence assigns the highest points haul on each band a score of 1000 and every other entrant a fractional score of 1000 based on the ratio of their claimed points to the maximum claimed points. For example, consider a situation where the best performing entry for a given class and band amassed 20,000points and the other two entrants (making 3 entrants in total) amassed 15,000 points and 10,000 points respectively. The highest point entry (20,000) would be awarded a score of 1000, the second highest entry would receive a score of 750 (15000/20000 x 1000) and the third entry would receive a score of 500 (10000/20000 x 1000)

The “normalised” scores based on the unadjudicated claimed points total for each entrant in our class is shown below.

Overall Results

On the face of it we seem to be third overall, Andover crept in on Thursday after the last update was posted with a good performance on 23cm, a good result on 70cm and a creditable result on 4m. Given that Andover have only submitted 3 logs, all in the low power class it is inevitable that they will be declared class winners.

Northern Fells Contest Group have submitted 5 logs, the three noted above in the low power class and 2 in the Restricted class of the other bands. My view is that they will enter the “Mix and Match” class and therefore not be a contender in the low power class, potentially elevating us to 2nd place.

If we were to drop 10% on each band we would continue to be top of 50MHz (6m) leaving our score of 1000 intact, we would drop to a “normalised” score of 502 on 70MHz (4m) and 394 on 144MHz (2m) reducing our “normalised” total to 1896 dropping us just behind Goole Radio and Electronics Society if they had no loss at all. However, as we’d only be 11 “normalised” points behind them it’s probable that we can maintain 2nd place and stay well ahead of Bath and District ARC too!