Clearly, our game is going to become more connected and real-time. I see no reason,
however, that this new world cannot co-exist with the traditional single operator
categories (WRTC-like for instance). What I would like to see considered is making sure
that the new world doesn't require everyone to be connected and integrated - interoperate
with a game where the "radio" people can play.
I was particularly struck by, and disagree with, the following:
"So everybody has to be
connected - so what - make a new CWAC overlay to CQ WW called the
Internet WW and run everybody's totals there. If a QSO isn't validated
because the station isn't online, give it one point or something."
I think this new game, which is very rapidly taking over the Assisted and
Multi-operator categories, can easily coexist with the traditional single
operator game that some of us still enjoy playing!:-)
Mark, KD4D
I am not sure we are communicating about what a "CWAC overlay" is -
everything on the air is just the same and all contacts count 100% for
the regular WW. In addition to the regular WW, though, the contacts are
also submitted (in real-time) to a server (possibly the same server as
the real-time scoreboard) where they are validated against other
submitted contacts and a parallel score is generated. In fact, the
real-time scoreboard could show *two* scores for me - one claimed score
as usual and one validated score for the Internet WW CWAC overlay. At
the end of the WW, I submit the usual log and the validation engine
posts my score from the QSOs submitted in real-time. So, in fact, the
new and existing games can co-exist very well. Someone listening in
could not tell the difference.
What would the submitted QSO data look like? A group of us developed an
XML schema for QSO and score submission in the late-90s. I'm sure there
are better data formats today but just throwing this out there, why not
use the QSO: line's regular Cabrillo format? That certainly seems to
suffice for after-contest log-checking. Assuming I've pre-registered my
category and header information with the validation server, there should
be no difference between real-time and post-contest contact validation.
To be sure, there is a lot more human oversight and intervention in
post-contest log-checking. One challenge would be to create a set of
validation policies that are a suitable compromise between real-time and
post-contest log-checking.
73, Ward N0AX
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