[CQ-Contest] How to be sure you have 60+ minutes off time

[Ward Silver]

It has nothing to do with "the robot".  if the mechanics are of 
interest, this is a consequence of how logs are (and must be) checked 
when there are no seconds in the time.  The robot only checks to be sure 
that the log is properly formatted according to the Cabrillo standard 
and that certain data elements like contest name and date-and-time are 
acceptable.  It is the log-checking software that calculates off-time.

The log checking software generally assessed off-time by determining 
whether during every individual clock minute (remember...no seconds) you 
were "on" or "off" the air.  You can't be both during an individual 
clock minute - you can only be "on" or "off".  When an "off" minute is 
detected - no QSOs logged during that minute - the off-time counter 
ticks up by one, starting from zero.  It has to tick for 60 consecutive 
minutes (in this particular contest) before a valid break time is 
considered to have occurred.  If an "on" minute is detected before 60 
ticks have occurred, the off-counter is reset to zero.  There is no 
rounding up to the nearest clock minute.

Should this be publicized more clearly?  I should think so, as not 
entirely unreasonable assumptions about what constitutes 60 minutes are 
being made in the absence of a clear specification, resulting in 
unwelcome surprises to the customers.

73, Ward N0AX

On 7/4/2013 10:04 AM, cq-contest-request at contesting.com wrote:
> Now, of course, we know that the robot isn't too smart, so we must let up to
> 61-minutes pass (at least those few of us who read this thread now know
> that).