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

[Robert Chudek - K0RC]

/"Should this be publicized more clearly?"/

All joking aside, I think the examples you provided are clear enough. To 
avoid the unwelcome surprises, it would call for your examples to be 
published where more people will read them. Stating the examples here is 
fine, but this forum is more or less like preaching to the choir!

So... if we look at our watches and it's noon, and you tell me "I'll 
meet you back here in an hour for a beer", I would expect you at 1:00. 
There's nothing wrong with that, but technically only 59 full minutes 
have passed, as you have shown.

73 de Bob - KØRC in MN

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On 7/4/2013 1:18 PM, Ward Silver wrote:
> 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).
>
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