[RTTY] BARTG HF Contest 2015 Preliminary Results

[Ben Antanaitis - WB2RHM]

Rick,

With all due respect to the programmers of N1MM+, this has been a 
monumental and wonderful effort by a dedicated team, but it still is 
a work in progress.

With regard to the status of N1MM+ time handling, and the BARTG 
contest programming in particular, this year:

1) What happened to the value saved for TIME2, if the user 
'corrected' any partial/incomplete/incorrect call already entered in 
the entry field, using the keyboard to either add extra characters, 
delete extra characters, or retype the call entirely, anytime during 
the QSO, before the TU or TU AND NOW exchange?

OR

2) What happened to the original TIME2 value, if the user 'fixed' a 
current but incorrect callsign, already showing inside the Entry 
window, by double-clicking on the 'correct' call being displayed in 
any DI window at anytime during the QSO before the TU or TU AND NOW exchange?

Was the 'stored'/Reported' Time2 value still the 'original' one, or 
did it get 'updated' due to 'retyping', or 'double-clicking' during 
the middle of the QSO?.  What time showed in the 'log page' or the 
Cabrillo report? Were they the same value?

What happened to the received time values that were terminated with a 
Z?  Or, what was sent when someone asked for an exchange re-send? 
What happened to the F11 or TIME2 value sent?

I know there were at least two N1MM+ '{TIME2}/Time field' 
related  updates that were released during the course of the BARTG 
contest weekend, during the contest period. One Official update and 
one 'experimental' update.  I belive that a contester could have 
begun operation and then operated the whole contest without knowing 
there were updates/changes to the TIME2/time handling at all.

Then, on Monday morning after the BARTG completed, another Official 
N1MM+ update was released, that would affect how certain Cabrillo 
'exchanges' were reported for BARTG entries.

In all fairness, how does the BARTG contest committee reconcile these 
differences in the exchanges that were transmitted during the contest 
vs the 'modified' ones  reported in the cabrillo before or after the 
'weekend decision' of the programmers?

As I understand it, all of the above situations, totally apply to the 
user who were using the {TIME2} macro properly and correctly.  To say 
that the problems were caused by the Users not using the TIME2 macro 
properly is just not correct.

73,

Ben - WB2RHM