[RTTY] LoTW contest issues

[Phil Cooper]

Hi all,

Although I didn't specifically take part in the LoTW contest, I feel the
rules are a little unclear on how it will be judged!

Fort a start, it says that the report is NOT fixed. So can we use the
Makrothen data?
It provides a scoring method, but an ADIF download from LoTW will not be a
scoreable thing.

The submission is - and it says..... "Your contest submittal is your LoTW
download report for the contest period (lotwreport.adi file) ....."

If, as per the exchange detail, you sent State/Province/DX then this will be
a part of the LoTW download anyway, so why bother logging it?

It also says that "Scoring for the LoTW contests will be automatically
generated by the sponsor once your log is submitted". So why do we need to
work out mults, points etc?

The one bit that has me laughing is the wording in the Eligible Operator,
section, where it says.... "Non-LoTW member stations may operate, but must
join LoTW as soon as possible (no later than 30 days after the
contest)......"
I don't know whether it is possible for USA ops to get up and running on
LoTW inside that 30 days, but for a non-USA op, that is simply impossible.

The simple fact that this is a contest, and is encouraging ops to take part,
any LoTW users that took part may easily have worked quite a number of
contacts, only to find that a very small percentage of those are actually a
member of LoTW. Could you really send SRI NO QSO UR NOT A LOTW MEMBER ??

I hope that next year, lessons are learnt, and maybe there will be some way
to include the LoTW contest as part of an existing contest. Why not the
Makrothen? And why not follow the time slots too? In reality, it could
simply follow ANY RTTY contest, for any period.

One last point............. After a contest, I generally upload my log to
LoTW as soon as it is convenient. This is often by the following day.
However, there are some ops who will NOT upload a log until AFTER the
submission date!

Just a few thoughts, and although I did criticise this contest earlier, I
applaud the concept, but maybe it needs some thought. Let's hope it will be
sorted for next year!

73 all

Phil GU0SUP