Not Reporting Contest Operating Time

Right up front I'll say that most readers won't find this article of the slightest interest. I've been busy with travel, tower work and family responsibilities and I've hardly even operated recently. After a brief and casual effort in SAC (Scandinavia Activity Contest) CW last weekend and reporting my results to 3830, this topic came to mind as I perused score submissions alongside my own. So why not a brief article on one my observations.

The subject of reporting raw scores during and immediately after contests has long been tainted with controversy, although most contesters pay little to no attention. They don't care, and that's fair. For the most part neither do I. I report my results promptly after contests, and typically submit my log to the sponsor at the same time. 

Opportunities for competitive comparisons have gone further. While I have only participated once while using and monitoring the contest online scoreboard, its popularity is growing. Participation is optional and you can control how much detail is shared. Soon we may have real time scoring. These developments are changing radiosport in many ways and have the potential to make it better and more interesting.

Where's the controversy to which I alluded? Certainly there are some that object to increasing dependence on the internet during the contest, or consider their operating tactics private. However the specific topic of this article has nothing to do with the internet or real time tactics. Rather, it's about disclosure, and how that information can be used by other contest participants. 

It comes down to: how much about your performance and objectives should be available to others? Should early (even real time) disclosure be an option or mandatory, and how can it help or hurt you in the current and future contests? There are major contests like CQ WW where your submitted log becomes public after the final results are published. So if you enter you must agree to this. Others can analyze your log for insights, but only long after the contest is over

Disclosure and public logs are not the norm for the majority of contests. Many choose not to disclose anything. As mentioned, real time contesting will greatly increase disclosure, and that can help or hurt your competitiveness. Do you want others to know that you are doing poorly on 80 meters, that you can't maintain a high rate during big openings, when you take off times, or what category you've entered?

I have no answers. All I can say is that more disclosure is the trend. Get ready for it since, if you contest, you will be affected. If not today then soon.

That's a long preamble for a short article. So let's get to the one aspect of disclosure I want to talk about today: hours of operating time in a contest. At a glance it discloses your rate by simply dividing QSOs by hours. Or does it?

An important measure of your performance in a contest is rate. At it simplest it is the ratio of QSOs to time, typically average contacts per hour. Higher is better if you are competitive. But too great a focus on rate can hurt if you spend less time hunting for multipliers. It's just one metric in a complex calculation of performance.

It can be very illuminating to compare your rate to others with similar or better stations in your area. If you're that station, your on time disclosure helps them to assess their relative performance. The comparison can help you, and other participants, to address shortcomings in future contests, if that's your objective.

This is a screenshot from 3830 a few hours after SAC CW ended Sunday morning. Most operators reported their operating time. I did not. Am I avoiding disclosure of my performance from other participants to give myself an edge? After all, I now know something about their contest performance that they do not know about mine.

The answer is: no. Lack of disclosure can have non-nefarious reasons. My reasons for not reporting operating time in this particular contest are as follows:

• I don't know
• I don't care
• It doesn't matter

This is typical when I operate casually in non-major contests.

Why don't I know? On time is calculated by pretty well every contest logging application. I use N1MM+ and it is easily selected from a drop down menu. The answer to the question is that I didn't look. Which brings me to the next two points in the list.

I didn't look because I didn't care. That requires an explanation. Even during a casual contest operation it is useful to look at the rate and to select operating hours when propagation and activity is best. I do that in some casual contests but not all. When I do I usually report my on time, since I monitor it and use it to measure my performance. It can provide useful feedback during casual and part time efforts even though a full time effort will typically result in a lower rate since, eventually, you run out of stations to work or you need to move to bands where contacts are more difficult.

The issue is that on time has a common meaning in addition to the definition specified in the contest rules. For example, if I operate for 15 minutes, step out of the shack for 20 minutes and then operate another 40 minutes, by the common meaning I operated for 55 minutes. In almost every contest there is a minimum off time period, typically 30 or 60 minutes. Therefore, per the rules, my on time was 75 minutes; the 20 minute break counts as on time. N1MM+ and other contest loggers use the definition in the contest rules.

That's how I operated SAC: operating for a bit, wandering out of the shack to do other things, then do a bit more operating. I did this without paying attention to on and off times. Therefore the software would calculate a time that does not represent my chosen pattern of activity. That time calculation is not personally useful to determine rate or anything else of consequence. 

The contest sponsor will calculate an on time from the submitted log in accordance with the rules. That calculation should match the time calculated by the software. Therefore it, too, is of no use to me. I ignore both.

Even if I had been competitive the on time calculation does not impact ranking in the contest results. In a contest like SAC where you can operate for the full 24 hour period, your choice to operate less is irrelevant. Rate doesn't enter into the ranking determination; only your score matters. That is why my third reason is that it doesn't matter.

In contests like NAQP and CQ WPX where single ops are limited to 10 out of 12 hours and 36 out of 48 hours, respectively, on time does matter. I pay close attention in those contests, seeking to maximize on time without exceeding the limit. Indeed, selection of off time is determined by contest strategy.

In major contests like CQ WW where there are no time limits it is still very useful to know your on time since endurance is a factor in participants' performance. The contest is 48 hours but if I can only physically tolerate operating for 42.5 hours, that matters. Therefore I track the time and report it.

I am not shy about disclosure when it matters.

I know contesters that deliberately hide whatever metrics about their contest entries that they can. Or they will wait until the log submission deadline. As more contest sponsors publish submitted logs after adjudication and publishing results, disclosure can be delayed but not prevented. 

I know a few of the reasons some do this but that's a topic I am not prepared to delve into. I've heard what I consider both good and bad reasons, keeping in mind that these are matters of personal judgment where there can be a diversity of opinions.