This message is for RTTY Contesters:
I am considering the possibility of retiring the RTTY-specific Super Check
Partial database files sometime next year. I am interested in your feedback
before doing so.
I've heard that many RTTY contesters, including myself, elect to use the
"general" Super Check Partial database files in RTTY contests. This can be
beneficial: you catch any contesters that may be new to RTTY or don't
operate RTTY contests often enough to be included in the RTTY database
(i.e., they don't show up in enough RTTY logs to be included). This is
making me wonder if the RTTY-specific database has outgrown its usefulness.
When I took over Super Check Partial from K5ZD in 2009, Don AA5AU also
reached out to me to take over the RTTY-specific Super Check Partial
database that he was maintaining separately. By doing this, we were able to
consolidate two separate databases into one and encouraged everyone to
funnel their log contributions to the supercheckpartial.com email address.
The "general" Super Check Partial database has always been generated from
contest logs regardless of mode - this will never change. When a RTTY
contest log is contributed, it is used to generate both the "general" and
the RTTY-specific SCP files.
As I understand it, the original primary motivation for generating a
RTTY-specific Super Check Partial database had to do with keeping the size
of the file as small as possible to maximize performance on older computers
and operating systems. We've reached the point in consumer-grade computer
hardware where a now relatively small 1 MB file like MASTER.DTA no longer
poses a performance issue even on what are now considered by 2013 standards
as older computers and operating systems that are still under official
support by their manufacturers. I still use a Pentium 4 with 500MB RAM
running Windows XP Service Pack 3 as my primary logging computer at home
with no real performance issues with MASTER.DTA using several contest
logging programs.
If you are a RTTY contester that continues to use the RTTY-specific SCP
files for a particular reason, I would appreciate your feedback letting me
know why. If there is a compelling reason why we should keep it around, I'm
more than happy to continue to generate it. However, if it becomes clear
that the database is no longer useful to the RTTY contesting community, I am
considering retiring it sometime next year.
****Please reply to me offline****. I will summarize comments in a
follow-up email to these reflectors.
Thanks and 73,
Bob WA1Z
http://www.supercheckpartial.com
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