[CQ-Contest] Team Competition in the IARU HF Championship -WRTC-Style

[Ward Silver]

First - I am all for real-time scoreboards being available to everyone.  I
don't know of any other sport where the participants almost always "fly
blind" without knowing how the other guys are doing.  There are exceptions -
contests with serial numbers - and we heartily accept these, so why not a
true scoring comparison available to everyone, participants and spectators
alike?  Yes, a real-time score reporting and viewing mechanism will be
welcome.

Second - Bruce's Web page idea will work very well.  Since the stations are
likely to be at a home QTH, Internet access is much less of an issue than
for WRTC, where access was less widespread.  By the way, the OH-team can be
very proud of having such a success with the first version - it makes our
discussion today possible.

Third - based on the success of the Cabrillo standardized log submission
format, a standardized QSO "line format" would also likely bear fruit.
Because there are so many different types of exchanges and the small amount
of information in each QSO, XML would be a very good choice.  This would
likely take quite a while to develop (i.e. - not for this summer), but I
think a prototype schema (the XML "rules" for QSO data) is very do-able
within a few months.

Note - Bruce has also kindly offered to help out with final score entry and
posting for the WRTC-style teams to ease the reporting process.  Thanks,
Bruce!!

73, Ward N0AX

----- Original Message -----
From: "Bruce Horn" <bhorn at hornucopia.com>
To: <cq-contest at contesting.com>
Cc: <hwardsil at centurytel.net>
Sent: Friday, May 16, 2003 9:28 AM
Subject: Re: [CQ-Contest] Team Competition in the IARU HF
Championship -WRTC-Style


> At 11:06 PM 5/15/2003 -0700, Rick Tavan wrote:
> >Is anyone out there willing and able to implement some form of real-time
> >or periodic reporting of team scores during the contest for viewing on a
> >Web page?
>
> It would be simple for me to make a web form available (and companion
> summary real-time web page) that would allow periodic reporting of team
> scores during the contest. The advantage of this method is that anyone can
> provide a periodic report regardless of what contest logging software
> they're using. The disadvantage is that one of the team members has to
take
> the time to complete the form (probably 15 seconds or so). I envision a
> form that is a simplified version of the 3830 score reporting form - just
> the basic fields needed to provide an updated score.
>
> In the longer term I'm interested in hearing from/working with others
about
> an open-source method of making real-time log status info available to a
> centralized server(s) during a contest. As I recall, the efforts in this
> area to date have been dependent on use of specific logging software or
use
> of a specific API. I'd prefer a standardized format (XML based?) and
method
> of communication (SOAP, e-mail, etc.) that would be straightforward for
the
> authors of contest logging software to implement within their programs.
>
> 73 de Bruce, WA7BNM   (bhorn at hornucopia.com)
>
>
>
>