[CQ-Contest] Faster results for CW SS?

[Tom Frenaye]

>
>Bill, WB0O asks:
>
>>   The question is: why does it take until June to get
>> the results? The entire contest season will be over,
>> and it may (or may not) be summer here, and my mind
>> will be a million miles from contests.

N6TR replied

>I think it is easy to understand why this takes as long as it does.  First,
>it takes about 2 months to get all of the logs, and fix some of the problem
>logs up (those that are missing information or logged the contest in local
>time or sent in the previous year's log).  Then, the log crunching has to
>occur, and in the past few years, there has been work put into improving 
>the capabilities of that process at the same time.  Once the numbers are
>generated, then the writeup needs to be written and folded into the schedule
>of the two people in the contest department at the ARRL.  Then, finally, it
>goes off to the printers and gets mailed out using the slow mail.
>
>And that doens't mention the paper logs that have to be dealt with manually
>(still about 10 percent).
>
>Many things are changing that can reduce this time and already this has 
>happened.  The robots are helping clean up problem logs in real time.
>Publication of the results on the web eliminates the printing and 
>mailing delay.  The log checking process is near "perfection" and requires
>less development in parallel.  It might be very possible to have "final"
>results for all stations within two months of the contest.
>
>The ARRL has come up with a new schedule for results, and things are moving
>up about 6 weeks for this year I understand.

November QST (p.104) says "We are still working on the schedule, but in general, the results should be available to ARRL members 3 to 4 months after the end of the event.  This allows us time to process logs, handle problems, add in paper logs and generate a nice write-up.  This is 2 to 3 months sooner than the current QST schedule."    For non-members the results will be available on the ARRL web site the month before the QST issue (i.e. early October for results that will be in November QST) - or 5 to 7 months after the contest.   At least that is the stated plan!

                -- Tom



=====
e-mail: frenaye at pcnet.com
Tom Frenaye, K1KI, P O Box J, West Suffield CT 06093 Phone: 860-668-5444