[CQ-Contest] SS off time calculations

[Tree]

All -

I had meant to get around to publishing something in the NCJ about this,
but just never get around to it...

And apologies to W2EV for this being posted in an informal place.  For 
anyone who doesn't know - I do the log checking for the SS Contests for
the ARRL.

I would like to explain how off/on time is calculated in the SS log checking 
process - and propose that this is how I think all contests should be doing 
it.

Here is a typical off time in a SS log (taken from my log in the SS CW 
contest this time around):

QSO:  3500 CW 2006-11-05 0847 W7RM 870 B 67 OR  N4ARO       50 A 52 Tn
QSO:  3500 CW 2006-11-05 0918 W7RM 871 B 67 OR  KQ7W        93 A 02 WWa

So - for the first part of this exercise - how long is the break? 

If you answered 31 minutes - you are going to be in for a disappointment.

If you answered that you really don't know - you are probably 100 percent
correct.

If you answered 30 minutes - you have read ahead.

The actual truth is - I have no idea how long your break was.  It was a trick
question - as LISTENING TIME COUNTS AS ON TIME!!!!!!   heh-heh

But - because Cabrillo didn't have a way for you the operator to tell me,
the log checker, when you breaks occurred - I had to make some assumptions.

(Note - Cabrillo 3.0 does have an offtime field - and actually this was in
2.0 for awhile - but it was only being used for a German contest.  I am not
aware of any SS logging software that supports it - and the log checking
software doesn't look for it).

ASSUMPTION #1: I will assume your break times are defined by the QSO times in
your log - and not add any additional time for listening.

Wow - you get a break...  so, if you return from a 30 minute break, and it 
takes you 5 minutes to get an answer to your CQ - I will count it as a 35
minute break for purposes of determining when your 24 hours on time is up.

However, since we only have times recorded in minutes, I really can't tell
the difference between this (look at the times):

QSO:  3500 CW 2006-11-05 0847:59 W7RM        870 B 67 OR  N4ARO       50 A 52 Tn
QSO:  3500 CW 2006-11-05 0918:00 W7RM        871 B 67 OR  KQ7W        93 A 02 WWa

And this:

QSO:  3500 CW 2006-11-05 0847:00 W7RM        870 B 67 OR  N4ARO       50 A 52 Tn
QSO:  3500 CW 2006-11-05 0918:59 W7RM        871 B 67 OR  KQ7W        93 A 02 WWa

The first one is pretty close to a 30 minute break, and the second 
one is about 32 minutes.  This assumes that QSOs take zero length of
time to actually occur.  It would also assume that you instantly turn
off your RX when starting a break - and instantly make a QSO as soone
as you turn on the RX after your break.

In order to make this somewhat possible to program in a computer, using
the information I have available, I do this:

ASSUMPTION #2: A "calendar" minute is either on time, or off time, and 
never both.  

An example of what I call a "calendar" minute would be something like 0000:00
to 0000:59.99999999999999.  In other words, the 60 seconds that occur while
the computer clock says 0000.

So - back to our break time case:

QSO:  3500 CW 2006-11-05 0847 W7RM        870 B 67 OR  N4ARO       50 A 52 Tn
QSO:  3500 CW 2006-11-05 0918 W7RM        871 B 67 OR  KQ7W        93 A 02 WWa

0847 and 0918 are on time minutes.  The off times minutes are 0848 through 
0917 inclusive - for a total of 30 minutes.  You can think of this as taking
your break from 0848:00 until 0917:59.9999999999 - which is 30 minutes.

It is possible to take a 30 minute break from 0847:30 until 0917:29.99999 and
actually have QSOs in both the 0847 and 0917 minutes logged correctly.  But
since a QSO takes about 15 seconds, this means that you are pretty quick about
stopping your on time (be honest - most of us call a CQ or two and wait for 
the clock to click over before starting our break) and that you start a QSO
within 15 seconds of turning on your RX after a break (which is VERY lucky).

Here is how the time on calculation looks for my W7RM log:

TIME ON CALCULATION
-------------------      
2100-0847 =  708
0918-0923 =    6
1213-1310 =   58
1343-2006 =  384
2039-2309 =  151
2340-0043 =   64
0115-0220 =   66
           ------
  On time = 1437 minutes (max of 1440).

Now - if you have times like this:

QSO:  3500 CW 2006-11-05 0847 W7RM        870 B 67 OR  N4ARO       50 A 52 Tn
QSO:  3500 CW 2006-11-05 0917 W7RM        871 B 67 OR  KQ7W        93 A 02 WWa

The log checking program is going to count this as 29 minutes off time, not 30.  
Yes, a legal break has to be 30 minutes - but we will still count this as a 
legal off time.  However, we will only give you credit for 29 minutes, not 30.  

Therefore, a log that has a lot of these 29 minute breaks, will find their on 
time adding up to 1440 quicker than they expected - and the QSOs that occur 
after 1440 will not be counted towards the score.  (Yes - they are still valid 
for the other stations when doing the cross checking).

And that's what I had to say about off times.

I think the off time calendar minute idea should become the standard way to
report off time.  Otherwise, it will get very confusing with different
interpretations for different contests.  This is being adopted as the 
standard method by the Cabrillo spec as well.

So - remember - you are either on the air for a whole minute - or off.  

Hopefully, this makes it much more clear.  

Oh - and the contest ends at 0300:00:0000000000 - not 0300:59:99999999.
You don't get an extra minute there either.

73 Tree N6TR
tree at kkn.net