[VHFcontesting] Radio Sports

[Kenneth E. Harker]

On Tue, Sep 07, 2004 at 06:00:07PM -0400, Ev Tupis wrote:
> K3uhf at aol.com wrote:
> >There is not enough of us to divide us into little sections and small 
> >competitive categories and still feel like you are competing.
> 
> With an on-line component for logging/participation, one could easily 
> compare one's performance to any one of several criteria without the need 
> to officially sanction those as "award categories".

You can already do this with the ARRL online scores databases.  
Check out http://www.arrl.org/members-only/contests/scores.html?con_id=53
for the database of scores from the 2003 ARRL September VHF QSO Party.
You can sort and compare the results by all sorts of combinations of 
operating class, ARRL section, ARRL Division, contest club, overall score,
QSOs, mults, grids rovered from, etc...  You can also download the entire
database, or any subset of it that you like, and do your own more 
extensive analyses with a spreadsheet/database program, or your own 
software.

Having this information available in real-time during the contest is 
a separate issue from whether or not it would be cool to have it at all -
we already do have it.

The system as we have it now cannot be abused, as it is a closed system 
and heavily adjusted by the log checkers for accuracy.  Any real-time 
system will have to address issues like whether the qso and mult totals 
received for K5TR are really being sent by K5TR and not someone else.
Will it become fashionable to overstate your progress in the contest
to intimidate your opponents?  Will it become fashionable to understate 
your progress in order to lull them into complacency?  How many people 
will try to sabotage a rival's score by sending in bogus numbers?  How
many will attempt to "pump up" the score of their contest club by sending
in bogus numbers, perhaps from bogus callsigns?  And how much will such 
a system be looked upon as self-spotting? - if you see a very recent 
claimed score online from K8CC, now you know he's on the air and maybe 
you should swing your beams to look for him.  If the system refreshes
fast enough, you might even be able to tell when a station you need to work 
is still "running the bands" with someone who beat you to the first QSO.
How will all of this affect contesters' decision-making during the 
contest?  These are the kinds of questions that those who want to rush 
into a real-time score reporting system need to consider.  The WRTC 
situation was far, far more controlled than contesting at large.

 
-- 
Kenneth E. Harker WM5R
kenharker at kenharker.com
http://www.kenharker.com/