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Re: [CQ-Contest] SS Off Time Calculations

To: "Mark Beckwith" <n5ot@n5ot.com>, <cq-contest@contesting.com>
Subject: Re: [CQ-Contest] SS Off Time Calculations
From: Bruce Horn <bhorn@hornucopia.com>
Date: Sat, 16 Dec 2006 09:16:45 -0800
List-post: <mailto:cq-contest@contesting.com>
At 08:02 AM 12/16/2006, Mark Beckwith wrote:
>It's important to note that different contests are processed by different
>volunteers.  It's VERY important in this case, because Tree is being
>generous with the 29 minute break thing.  There was a NAQP recently where
>the guy with the highest claimed score got significantly knocked down
>because the non-Tree volunteer who judges the NAQP was not as generous about
>granting amnesty on a 29 minute break as Tree is in his example, and just
>clipped 29 minutes worth of QSOs out of the log.

Hmm, the "non-Tree volunteer" (I didn't realize that was a category) is me. 
I log check all of the NAQP logs. As far as the judgment that I "was not as 
generous about granting amnesty on a 29 minute break," the method of 
calculating off-time in NAQP logs is equally generous to what Tree 
described. Entrants have received credit for a 30 minute break if the 
difference in times between two successive QSOs = 30, e.g. 1831-1801=30 -- 
even though I agree with the QSO-minute concept that calculates 29 minutes 
for this example. This means that NAQP entrants have been credited with 30 
minute breaks when the breaks may have been only 29 minutes. For Mark's 
example, this means that the break that wasn't counted as a 30-minute 
break, must have been a 28 minute period without QSOs using the QSO-minute 
method of calculating off time.

>In my opinion it would have been more kosher for the log checker to clip a
>QSO or two off where the operator resumed at the end of the brake that was a
>minute too short by accident.

That would be one possible approach. The problem is this leads to the 
subjectivity of when is a break not really a break, but almost a break so 
that the log checker simulates the correct break by removing a few Qs at 
the end of the almost break. Is it 28 minutes? 27? 26? ... Earlier threads 
on CQ-Contest have asked for consistency in the process - I believe it is 
more consistent to apply the same requirement (as specified in the contest 
rules) to all of the logs, rather than subjectively decide that a break was 
"close enough."


>it doesn't serve the sport for this
>kind of inconsistency to be going on.  The checkers should get their heads
>together and agree on how they're going to do things more than they do.

I agree.

73 de Bruce, WA7BNM   (bhorn@hornucopia.com) 


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