Hi Ed and Don,
Thanks for the information.? I'm sorry to hear that you are discontinuing FT Roundup after only 6 years.? Creating new, stand alone programs is a lot of work that typically takes several weeks of full effort to complete.? With less than three weeks notification before the first running of your new FT Challenge contest and all the other projects we are actively working on right now, there isn't sufficient lead time for us to create a program to support your new contest.
While the scoring protocols in our WW Digi DX program are similar and will accept the standard exchange data from WSJT-X, the requirement of both SNR (RST) and grid limits our WW Digi software as a good alternative.? The SNR values are not displayed in the list to the user, the RST data entry fields are not displayed on the form or checked as containing values on entry and the transferred RST values are not written to the Cabrillo file.??
That's too bad.? Your brand new contest would have been a?relatively?easy add otherwise, by incorporating it with the existing WW Digi DX module.? If you would be willing to drop SNR from the required exchange elements or make SNR optional, the existing WW Digi software could be used as is,?and we would be happy to continue to support?your new contest now under that scenario.
With all the contests we already support, any additional stand?alone programs we add to the current package are now?very?few and far between.? We wish we could support every contest out there, but with our present, stand alone program approach, that is not realistic.
Additionally, in the past, we have rushed to support new contests out of the gate and wound up wasting time as a result. In some cases, contest sponsors even contact us to work with them from the start, which sounds good until they decide to completely change the rules at the last minute or abandon the project entirely, after we have already spent weeks of work on the project. In other cases, contests we supported lasted for a time, but were then abandoned, such as your FT Roundup, the Mid Atlantic QSO Party, Great Lakes QSO Party, Kid's Round up, etc. Having learned our lesson, we now typically wait at least 2-3 years after a new contest is introduced to add support, to make sure the rules are not in flux, participation is sufficient, increasing and contest coordination is stable.
Even with?those criteria, we are now very reluctant to add any more stand?alone programs.? The legs of this camel are getting mighty wobbly already, so we feel we can eventually address the many other contests that we would love to support best by turning our efforts to our next major vision...
We understand the desire to be able to have a customizable, multi platform program that can be quickly configured for every contest.? This will be a fresh, major, multi-year project that is in the long term planning process.? It is at least several years out and still in the earliest brainstorming phase, but a single, customizable program that will be more easily adapted to new and currently unsupported contests is definitely part of that long term, future vision!? We have a long way to go, but we have begun the initial feasibility steps and research to make this vision a reality!? We hope to be?able to fit?your new contest into our long term plan!? Thanks for your patience and understanding.
We wish you all the best in establishing your new contest!
