[CQ-Contest] Contest dashboards

[Matt NQ6N]

I'd be curious about this too. I think I was the one (or one of several)
who mentioned the kind of dashboard Ken describes.

I've been part of a few very exciting close finishes in the weekly CWT and
have really enjoyed the real time scoreboards. I have found that when I
watch my position compared to the stations I am most competitive with, the
"lead" bounces around between each of us during the contest and then
usually one or two will pull away and end up with the highest score in the
cohort.  Once or twice it's been me, but when it's not I always wonder what
decisions the other ops made that resulted in their success. Was it better
propagation? Or did they observe something that led to a smarter approach?

The dashboard I've been dreaming up (worked on a bit over the December
holiday) allows for "instant replay" by allowing you to rewind it back to
any moment of the contest to watch the competitive dynamic between selected
stations.  Who is louder into W6? Who moved to 80m sooner? Who got spotted
more or had the fastest 10min rate?

I don't think the goal is necessarily comparing one's own score the top
scoring stations. There are some incredible stations and ops and I do not
necessarily need a dashboard to know that the station who worked 60 Qs in
the CWT on 40m compared to my 9 did so partially because of a 40m stack
compared to my vertical with three radials.  But it's interesting to
compare my score to stations who typically end up close to my own score,
where the stations are more likely similar and the advantage may come down
to deliberate strategy or to impromptu decisions that made the most of the
available propagation.

The challenge I've had in designing such a dashboard is to figure out a
visualization for the key strategic elements that is easy to perceive in a
real-time side by side so that I can have a window showing the dashboard
for the 3 or 4 stations whose strategy I wish to focus on during or after
the contest.  Some of the dimensions are most useful as a rate of change,
while others are most useful as a min/max over a time window, etc. There is
also (potentially) limited granularity for the score reporting since some
ops have their logger set up to send updates only ever 5 mins.

73,
Matt NQ6N


On Fri, Apr 20, 2018 at 8:55 AM, Joe <nss at mwt.net> wrote:

> I wonder if a poll could be made on this subject?
>
> "Do you like to be able to see what all your competition is doing in a
> contest"?
>
> Not so much as What , but Live scores. etc.
>
> I have been contesting since 1975, 90% of the time at a minimal station.
> Low power, with low dipoles, etc.
>
> But used to be a guy that was invited to run some great stations. And Wow!
> That is fun!
>
> But when as a small station, Maybe I'm a minority here. I find it
> personally deflating or defeating to see how well others are doing compared
> to me.
>
> Say you are trying your best, and are in a contest that has serial
> numbers, or you look at one of the live scoreboards, and you see 1/2 of the
> people have double your score. Not a little more but DOUBLE, your score.
> Now I may be in a minority here, but to me that just kills it some. It just
> seems a LOT less fun to me.
>
> So the question is,
>
> "Do you like to see how others are doing compared to you"?
>
> Joe WB9SBD
> Sig
> The Original Rolling Ball Clock
> Idle Tyme
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>
> On 4/20/2018 8:25 AM, ktfrog007--- via CQ-Contest wrote:
>
>> Hi,
>>
>>
>> Someone recently had a post here (if I remember correctly) about
>> designing a contest "dashboard" to make watching contests more interesting
>> and informative. Sort of an enhanced online scoreboard, if I understood it
>> properly.
>>
>>
>> I meant to keep a copy of the email, but lost it somehow.  I would like
>> to contact the person who wrote it, so if he or she reads this please
>> contact me directly, off the reflector.
>>
>>
>> Thank you and 73,
>> Ken, AB1J
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