[CQ-Contest] tech challenge - SAY WHAT?

[David Robbins K1TTT]

> Real-time scoring is here and it will grow at a very strong pace....I was
> amazed to see so many participants on the site this past weekend....they
> covered almost every class of operation...my challenge was to the M-M's
> who
> are not leading the way, but keeping their score "close to the vest" until
> time to announce on 3830....why is it this way?? Being "in the loop" ( a
> real nice techno phrase) during the whole contest is more important to me
> and obviously others too....it's nice to see how we each stack up as the
> contest is unfolding....it serves as a good motivation tool for a
> M-M...can't speak for the SOAA ....I can go to my band teams and let them
> know they are doing good or they need to really get with it...that is also
> tension-relieving...
> 
> Still trying to figure out the Mental Thing....confused down in Dixie

the mental thing is great.  Being in a close race with another station is
the most exciting part of it.  seeing that the competition is beating you
out on one band can help motivate ops to dig deeper, or point out that you
are doing something wrong on that band (too much s&p, not enough cq, or vice
versa).  Yes, you can give away some of your strategy, but you do that when
you put in packet spots also.  It all adds to the interest in the activity.
I consider contesting without real time scores to be like a sailing race
blindfolded.  Imagine if you couldn't see what your competition was doing,
when they tacked, when they took a turn wide or held it close to the buoy,
or even if they were ahead or behind you on a given leg... not nearly as
much fun.

If we can get more interest and advertisement of the real time aspect
outside the contesting community it can help show prospective contesters how
much activity there really is, on which bands and modes, and can give them
something to shoot for without having to wait 10 months for a magazine to be
published.

Oh, and if you missed k1ttt in wpx cw you should check your log for wk1q who
was doing soab-hp here and was on the scoreboard.

BTW, gerry tells me the board outage Friday night was due to an emergency
recovery of the database servers at his hosting site, not due to his stuff.


David Robbins K1TTT
e-mail: mailto:k1ttt at arrl.net
web: http://www.k1ttt.net
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