Supporting state QSO parties

[Nate Bargmann]

Useful to some ops would be support for state QSO parties. The
exchange/multipliers for these parties are far from uniform but a small
sampling indicates a broad outline.

Stations in a state provide signal report and a three letter
county designation. Some also add/use a serial number.

Stations outside the state give signal report and state/province
abbreviation or 'DX'. Nebraska requires DXCC entity be given (I did not
see what format that takes).

Here in Kansas we also have two bonus stations that may be worked.

It would appear that the most pressing change is a need to use some sort
of state/county reference file (hopefully one exists) and then write the
class needed for a given QP.

For me the Kansas QP is in a month's time, 25/26 August, so any pointers
will be appreciated.

73, de Nate >>

--

"The optimist proclaims that we live in the best of all
possible worlds. The pessimist fears this is true."

Ham radio, Linux, bikes, and more: http://www.n0nb.us

[R. Torsten Clay]

On Wed, Jul 25, 2012 at 6:23 PM, Nate Bargmann <n0...@n0nb.us> wrote:

Useful to some ops would be support for state QSO parties.  The
exchange/multipliers for these parties are far from uniform but a small
sampling indicates a broad outline.

Stations in a state provide signal report and a three letter
county designation.  Some also add/use a serial number.

Stations outside the state give signal report and state/province
abbreviation or 'DX'.  Nebraska requires DXCC entity be given (I did not
see what format that takes).

Here in Kansas we also have two bonus stations that may be worked.

It would appear that the most pressing change is a need to use some sort
of state/county reference file (hopefully one exists) and then write the
class needed for a given QP.

For me the Kansas QP is in a month's time, 25/26 August, so any pointers
will be appreciated.

Yes, for each of these a list of counties and their abbreviations has to be collected.
Some issues I can think of:

1. the program only allows two "kinds" of multipliers. For qso parties that use for
example counties and states there is no problem. Some use counties+states+DXCC
for in-state entrants. In this case the simplest option is to make separate mult file
for in-state entrants that combines the counties and states.

2. mobiles changing counties and qso parties that allow "county-line" operations where
stations give multiple counties in their exchange will cause problems. These will require
modifications to the rest of the program- the way duping is handled will need a special
case.

Tor
N4OGW

[Nate Bargmann]

* On 2012 26 Jul 09:34 -0500, R. Torsten Clay wrote:
> Yes, for each of these a list of counties and their abbreviations has
> to be collected.
> Some issues I can think of:
>
> 1. the program only allows two "kinds" of multipliers. For qso parties
> that use for example counties and states there is no problem. Some use
> counties+states+DXCC for in-state entrants. In this case the simplest
> option is to make separate mult file for in-state entrants that
> combines the counties and states.

Actually, I'm just concerned about being able to log QSOs without
worrying too much about scoring while getting a Cabrillo file.

> 2. mobiles changing counties and qso parties that allow "county-line"
> operations where stations give multiple counties in their exchange
> will cause problems. These will require modifications to the rest of
> the program- the way duping is handled will need a special case.

Add to this the fact that Kansas offers two bonus stations, K0A and
KS0KS. Here is are the rules:

http://www.ksqsoparty.org/rules/

Support for QSO parties seems to be about as complicated as it gets. I
was hoping for a way to use Linux for my efforts, but maybe I have to go
back to N1MM on W2k. Yuck!

I've attached a file of Kansas county abbreviations.

[R. Torsten Clay]

On Wed, Aug 8, 2012 at 6:34 AM, Nate Bargmann <n0...@n0nb.us> wrote:

* On 2012 26 Jul 09:34 -0500, R. Torsten Clay wrote:
> Yes, for each of these a list of counties and their abbreviations has
> to be collected.
> Some issues I can think of:
>
> 1. the program only allows two "kinds" of multipliers. For qso parties
> that use for example counties and states there is no problem. Some use
> counties+states+DXCC for in-state entrants. In this case the simplest
> option is to make separate mult file for in-state entrants that
> combines the counties and states.

Actually, I'm just concerned about being able to log QSOs without
worrying too much about scoring while getting a Cabrillo file.

You can always use the "dxpedition/general logging" contest for that. It assumes
two exchange elements, RST + a string. The string can be anything.

Tor
N4OGW

 

[S56A]

Once upon a time two mults were enough for all contests but then CQ WW RTTY introduced WVE states to DXCC and zones.  Cabrillo format is not enough for S&P stations as one needs to know details about multipliers.  ITU zones for Siberia are often wrong in AD1C country files although they are uniquely assigned by the first suffix letter.

 

GL SO2SDR Tor & Nate!  YT7PWR works on similar SDR project while I am not much on CW robot and RTTY Skimmer.

 

73 de Mario, S56A, N1YU

 

P.S.  Nice to catch loud N4OGW in IARU contest!