main@WSJTX.groups.io | Proposal for an ongoing FT event

Kermit Lehman

Hello,

Many have remarked that FT activity is like an ongoing 24/7 contest. That's true, except there's no real contest. This email is a suggestion for one that some organization might want to establish.

Since grid locs are a normal part of the FT exchange (most of the time), HF as well as VHF/UHF grid chasing has become an interest in the FT community. Grids could also be used for another interesting activity: distance scoring. Right now grid locs are used for distance scoring in the Makrothen RTTY and the Stew Perry contests and perhaps others that I don't know about.

It might be fun to hold annual events, competitions, if you like, that are based on the total distances worked by participating stations. Score listings could be based on something fun like astronomical distances (How many trips to the moon and back? Can anyone make it to the Sun?).

I don't know an easy way to compute such a score at the moment, but I did an experiment today. I combined my own AB1J and W1W logs (wsjtx-log.adi) for this year, doctored it appropriately in the ADIFMaster editor to make it look like a Makrothen log and then uploaded it into an empty N1MM+ Makrothen contest data base (however, see Addendum note 2). It loaded into N1MM+ fine and then I did a rescore and found my distance total is 7,364,460 km.

This isn't exactly correct since the Makrothen scoring gives more points for 40m and 80m, but it gives me an idea of what to expect from distance scoring. Of course, there's no problem using the Makrothen scoring rules for our purposes if we wanted to What we need in any case is a distance calculation app that would be easier to use than my test method above. That app, like the truth, may be out there somewhere, but I couldn't find it today. If anyone knows where to get a grid loc distance scoring program, please let me know.

Does this idea have any resonance? Even if not, it might be fun at the end of the year for interested people to calculate a yearly distance total. I could send out a similar email at year's end to collect scores to post if anyone is interested. If done only once a year, my test method might be bearable but maybe I can come up with a better way in the meantime.

73,

Ken, AB1J

Addendum 1: Here are a few lines from my FT ADIF file to show how I changed it to fake the Makrothen.

- WARC band QSOs were switched to the nearest legacy band so they would be included in the scoring.

60m went to 40m, 30m to 20m and 17m & 12m to 15m.

I kept the FREQ column for reference, but changed it to X-FREQ so it would be ignored.

- FT8, FT4 (MFSK) and a few JT65 were converted to RTTY.

- I didn't bother to look up missing grid locs for this test.

- N1MM+ didn't seem to mind the non-RST signal report data.

<CALL:5>VA3WU <MODE:4>RTTY <RST_SENT:3>+04 <RST_RCVD:3>+05 <QSO_DATE:8>20210102 <TIME_ON:6>135345 <QSO_DATE_OFF:8>20210102 <TIME_OFF:6>135445 <BAND:3>40m <X-FREQ:8>5.358006 <STATION_CALLSIGN:4>AB1J <MY_GRIDSQUARE:6>FN42JJ <CONTEST_ID:14>MAKROTHEN-RTTY <TX_PWR:2>90 <EOR>

<CALL:4>W0GJ <MODE:4>RTTY <RST_SENT:3>-10 <RST_RCVD:3>-07 <QSO_DATE:8>20210102 <TIME_ON:6>135500 <QSO_DATE_OFF:8>20210102 <TIME_OFF:6>135600 <BAND:3>40m <X-FREQ:8>5.358006 <STATION_CALLSIGN:4>AB1J <MY_GRIDSQUARE:6>FN42JJ <CONTEST_ID:14>MAKROTHEN-RTTY <TX_PWR:2>90 <GRIDSQUARE:4>EN43 <EOR>

<CALL:6>WA9THI <MODE:4>RTTY <RST_SENT:3>-14 <RST_RCVD:3>+00 <QSO_DATE:8>20210104 <TIME_ON:6>002415 <QSO_DATE_OFF:8>20210104 <TIME_OFF:6>002515 <BAND:3>40m <X-FREQ:8>5.359324 <STATION_CALLSIGN:4>AB1J <MY_GRIDSQUARE:6>FN42JJ <CONTEST_ID:14>MAKROTHEN-RTTY <TX_PWR:2>90 <GRIDSQUARE:4>EM69 <EOR>

Addendum 2: This is ONLY for those who double log FT QSOs in both N1MM+ and WSJT-X. I log all my QSOs into N1MM+, any mode, so all FT QSOs go there as well as into the WSJT-X logs. All FT is double logged. When I tried to upload my fake Makrothen log, N1MM+ thought I was loading duplicate QSOs. If I had gone ahead, it would have loaded them in and also deleted them from my normal N1MM+ date base. I think that's what would have happened, so to be safe I did the whole operation on another computer where I also have N1MM+ installed.

Kermit Lehman

#25677

Hello,

Here's an update to an email I sent out incorrectly (wrong address?) yesterday. Since then I got some help from Bruce Horn, WA7BMN, so this is a new and much improved version. Ignore anything I sent earlier.

Many have remarked that FT activity is like an ongoing 24/7 contest. That's true, except there's no real contest. This email is a suggestion for one that some organization might want to establish.

Since grid locs are a normal part of the FT exchange (most of the time), HF as well as VHF/UHF grid chasing has become an interest in the FT community. Grids could also be used for another interesting activity: distance scoring. Right now grid locs are used for distance scoring in the Makrothen RTTY, WW-Digi and the Stew Perry contests and perhaps others that I don't know about.

It might be fun to hold year-long events, competitions, if you like, that are based on the total distances worked by participating stations, summing up all their QSOs during the year. Score listings could be based on something fun like astronomical distances (How many trips to the moon and back? Can anyone make it to the Sun?).

This would run the whole calendar year and operation would be exactly the same as normal, everyday operation. Grids need to be exchanged or looked up in those cases where it is skipped for speed or special calls. It spirit it is similar to the CQ DX Marathon, the UBA Prefix Hunt, N3FJP's WASC, the TBDXC Ultra-Marathon and others. Results would be made available after the end of the year.

Last night I calculated the distance in my 2021 AB1J and W1W logs (combined into one wsjtx-log.adi). I loaded it into ADIFMaster, extracted the grid loc column and fed it to the ARRL distance calculator

at https://contest-clubs.arrl.org/griddistancecalc.php

After running the program, I took the results, loaded it into an Excel file and summed the distances. The result was 6,786,493 km from 1930 good QSOs with grid locs.

Does this idea have any resonance? Even if not, it might be fun at the end of the year for interested people to calculate a yearly distance total. I could send out a similar email at year's end to collect scores to post if anyone is interested.

73,

Ken, AB1J

William Smith <w_smith@...>

#25678

Sounds like fun, Python code to parse wsjtx.log is trivial, and there's https://pypi.org/project/maidenhead/ to convert to lat/lon, and then https://pypi.org/project/geopy/ to get distance, or https://github.com/dh1tw/pyhamtools (looks like the code is there but the documentation is [ahem] incomplete) where it looks like:

from pyhamtools.locator import calculate_distance
calculate_distance("JN48QM", "QF67bf")16466.413

should work.

Count me in!

73, Willie N1JBJ

On Jun 9, 2021, at 9:24 AM, Kermit Lehman via groups.io <ktfrog007@...> wrote:

Hello,

Here's an update to an email I sent out incorrectly (wrong address?) yesterday.  Since then I got some help from Bruce Horn, WA7BMN, so this is a new and much improved version.  Ignore anything I sent earlier.

Many have remarked that FT activity is like an ongoing 24/7 contest.  That's true, except there's no real contest.  This email is a suggestion for one that some organization might want to establish. 

Since grid locs are a normal part of the FT exchange (most of the time), HF as well as VHF/UHF grid chasing has become an interest in the FT community.  Grids could also be used for another interesting activity: distance scoring.  Right now grid locs are used for distance scoring in the Makrothen RTTY, WW-Digi and the Stew Perry contests and perhaps others that I don't know about.

It might be fun to hold year-long events, competitions, if you like, that are based on the total distances worked by participating stations, summing up all their QSOs during the year.  Score listings could be based on something fun like astronomical distances (How many trips to the moon and back? Can anyone make it to the Sun?).

This would run the whole calendar year and operation would be exactly the same as normal, everyday operation.  Grids need to be exchanged or looked up in those cases where it is skipped for speed or special calls.  It spirit it is similar to the CQ DX Marathon, the UBA Prefix Hunt, N3FJP's WASC, the TBDXC Ultra-Marathon and others.  Results would be made available after the end of the year.

Last night I calculated the distance in my 2021 AB1J and W1W  logs (combined into one wsjtx-log.adi).  I loaded it into ADIFMaster, extracted the grid loc column and fed it to the ARRL distance calculator 
at      https://contest-clubs.arrl.org/griddistancecalc.php

After running the program, I took the results, loaded it into an Excel file and summed the distances. The result was 6,786,493 km from 1930 good QSOs with grid locs.

Does this idea have any resonance?  Even if not, it might be fun at the end of the year for interested people to calculate a yearly distance total.  I could send out a similar email at year's end to collect scores to post if anyone is interested.

73,

Ken, AB1J

Brian Stucker

#25693

Hello Ken,

Without turning this into a longer contesting discussion, you might also want to look into starting the CQ Marathon. It runs from Jan 1st through December 31st. Your score is a combination of worked DXCC entities (plus 6 more not in the DXCC list) and zones. Given how many DX QSOs are completed with FT-8 it's pretty close to what you're suggesting. It takes quite a considerable amount of work to get your score into the 200s or higher.

It can be very addictive trying to scour around for another DX entity to contact, and you can use that activity towards other awards like DXCC, etc.

On the VHF/UHF side, you can always go for VUCC, FFMA, or even a 2M or 6M DXCC award if you want to be even more ambitious.

73,

Brian - KB2S

Show quoted text

On Wed, Jun 9, 2021 at 7:28 AM William Smith <w_smith@...> wrote:

Sounds like fun, Python code to parse wsjtx.log is trivial, and there's https://pypi.org/project/maidenhead/ to convert to lat/lon, and then https://pypi.org/project/geopy/ to get distance, or https://github.com/dh1tw/pyhamtools (looks like the code is there but the documentation is [ahem] incomplete) where it looks like:

>>> from pyhamtools.locator import calculate_distance
>>> calculate_distance("JN48QM", "QF67bf")
16466.413

should work.

Count me in!

73, Willie N1JBJ

> On Jun 9, 2021, at 9:24 AM, Kermit Lehman via groups.io <ktfrog007=aol.com@groups.io> wrote:
>
> Hello,
>
>
> Here's an update to an email I sent out incorrectly (wrong address?) yesterday. Since then I got some help from Bruce Horn, WA7BMN, so this is a new and much improved version. Ignore anything I sent earlier.
>
>
> Many have remarked that FT activity is like an ongoing 24/7 contest. That's true, except there's no real contest. This email is a suggestion for one that some organization might want to establish.
>
>
> Since grid locs are a normal part of the FT exchange (most of the time), HF as well as VHF/UHF grid chasing has become an interest in the FT community. Grids could also be used for another interesting activity: distance scoring. Right now grid locs are used for distance scoring in the Makrothen RTTY, WW-Digi and the Stew Perry contests and perhaps others that I don't know about.
>
>
> It might be fun to hold year-long events, competitions, if you like, that are based on the total distances worked by participating stations, summing up all their QSOs during the year. Score listings could be based on something fun like astronomical distances (How many trips to the moon and back? Can anyone make it to the Sun?).
>
>
> This would run the whole calendar year and operation would be exactly the same as normal, everyday operation. Grids need to be exchanged or looked up in those cases where it is skipped for speed or special calls. It spirit it is similar to the CQ DX Marathon, the UBA Prefix Hunt, N3FJP's WASC, the TBDXC Ultra-Marathon and others. Results would be made available after the end of the year.
>
>
> Last night I calculated the distance in my 2021 AB1J and W1W logs (combined into one wsjtx-log.adi). I loaded it into ADIFMaster, extracted the grid loc column and fed it to the ARRL distance calculator
> at https://contest-clubs.arrl.org/griddistancecalc.php
>
>
> After running the program, I took the results, loaded it into an Excel file and summed the distances. The result was 6,786,493 km from 1930 good QSOs with grid locs.
>
>
> Does this idea have any resonance? Even if not, it might be fun at the end of the year for interested people to calculate a yearly distance total. I could send out a similar email at year's end to collect scores to post if anyone is interested.
>
>
> 73,
>
> Ken, AB1J
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>

William Smith <w_smith@...>

#25700

In fact:

#!/usr/bin/env python3
#
# Calculate distance (by year?) from wsjtx.log
#
# rev 1.0 06/09/2021 WPNS read and parse file
# rev 1.1 06/09/2021 WPNS parse yar, accumulate by year.

import time
from datetime import datetime
from pyhamtools.locator import calculate_distance

QSOfile = open("wsjtx.log","r")

LineCount = 0
DistanceAcc = 0
StartYear = 2020
DistanceAcc = [0]*10  # allow for 10 years

for line in QSOfile:
    LineCount += 1

    Values = line.split(",")
    Year = int(Values[0][0:4])
    Grid = Values[5]
    if (Grid != ''):
        Distance = calculate_distance("FN42kn96", Grid)
        DistanceAcc[Year-StartYear] += Distance
QSOfile.close()

print("Found {} Lines in file".format(LineCount))

for year in range(len(DistanceAcc)):
    if DistanceAcc[year] > 0:
        print ("{} {}".format(year+StartYear,int(DistanceAcc[year])))


I get:
Found 576 Lines in file
2020 858040
2021 184032

Enjoy!

73, Willie N1JBJ

Show quoted text

On Jun 9, 2021, at 10:28 AM, William Smith via groups.io <w_smith@...> wrote:

Sounds like fun, Python code to parse wsjtx.log is trivial, and there's https://pypi.org/project/maidenhead/ to convert to lat/lon, and then https://pypi.org/project/geopy/ to get distance, or https://github.com/dh1tw/pyhamtools (looks like the code is there but the documentation is [ahem] incomplete) where it looks like:

from pyhamtools.locator import calculate_distance
calculate_distance("JN48QM", "QF67bf")16466.413

should work.

Count me in!

73, Willie N1JBJ

On Jun 9, 2021, at 9:24 AM, Kermit Lehman via groups.io <ktfrog007@...> wrote:

Hello,

Here's an update to an email I sent out incorrectly (wrong address?) yesterday.  Since then I got some help from Bruce Horn, WA7BMN, so this is a new and much improved version.  Ignore anything I sent earlier.

Many have remarked that FT activity is like an ongoing 24/7 contest.  That's true, except there's no real contest.  This email is a suggestion for one that some organization might want to establish. 

Since grid locs are a normal part of the FT exchange (most of the time), HF as well as VHF/UHF grid chasing has become an interest in the FT community.  Grids could also be used for another interesting activity: distance scoring.  Right now grid locs are used for distance scoring in the Makrothen RTTY, WW-Digi and the Stew Perry contests and perhaps others that I don't know about.

It might be fun to hold year-long events, competitions, if you like, that are based on the total distances worked by participating stations, summing up all their QSOs during the year.  Score listings could be based on something fun like astronomical distances (How many trips to the moon and back? Can anyone make it to the Sun?).

This would run the whole calendar year and operation would be exactly the same as normal, everyday operation.  Grids need to be exchanged or looked up in those cases where it is skipped for speed or special calls.  It spirit it is similar to the CQ DX Marathon, the UBA Prefix Hunt, N3FJP's WASC, the TBDXC Ultra-Marathon and others.  Results would be made available after the end of the year.

Last night I calculated the distance in my 2021 AB1J and W1W  logs (combined into one wsjtx-log.adi).  I loaded it into ADIFMaster, extracted the grid loc column and fed it to the ARRL distance calculator 
at      https://contest-clubs.arrl.org/griddistancecalc.php

After running the program, I took the results, loaded it into an Excel file and summed the distances. The result was 6,786,493 km from 1930 good QSOs with grid locs.

Does this idea have any resonance?  Even if not, it might be fun at the end of the year for interested people to calculate a yearly distance total.  I could send out a similar email at year's end to collect scores to post if anyone is interested.

73,

Ken, AB1J

Jeff Townsend

#25716

The ARRL 222 and Up and Microwave contests are all distance based. The contest exchange is your 6 digit grid for distance accuracy.

Using the 4 digit grids will result is large distance errors.

On Jun 9, 2021, at 3:31 PM, William Smith <w_smith@...> wrote:

In fact:

#!/usr/bin/env python3
#
# Calculate distance (by year?) from wsjtx.log
#
# rev 1.0 06/09/2021 WPNS read and parse file
# rev 1.1 06/09/2021 WPNS parse yar, accumulate by year.

import time
from datetime import datetime
from pyhamtools.locator import calculate_distance

QSOfile = open("wsjtx.log","r")

LineCount = 0
DistanceAcc = 0
StartYear = 2020
DistanceAcc = [0]*10 # allow for 10 years

for line in QSOfile:
    LineCount += 1

    Values = line.split(",")
    Year = int(Values[0][0:4])
    Grid = Values[5]
    if (Grid != ''):
        Distance = calculate_distance("FN42kn96", Grid)
        DistanceAcc[Year-StartYear] += Distance
QSOfile.close()

print("Found {} Lines in file".format(LineCount))

for year in range(len(DistanceAcc)):
    if DistanceAcc[year] > 0:
        print ("{} {}".format(year+StartYear,int(DistanceAcc[year])))

I get:
Found 576 Lines in file
2020 858040
2021 184032

Enjoy!

73, Willie N1JBJ

> On Jun 9, 2021, at 10:28 AM, William Smith via groups.io <w_smith@...> wrote:
>
> Sounds like fun, Python code to parse wsjtx.log is trivial, and there's https://pypi.org/project/maidenhead/ to convert to lat/lon, and then https://pypi.org/project/geopy/ to get distance, or https://github.com/dh1tw/pyhamtools (looks like the code is there but the documentation is [ahem] incomplete) where it looks like:
>
>>>> from pyhamtools.locator import calculate_distance
>>>> calculate_distance("JN48QM", "QF67bf")
> 16466.413
>
> should work.
>
> Count me in!
>
> 73, Willie N1JBJ
>
>
>> On Jun 9, 2021, at 9:24 AM, Kermit Lehman via groups.io <ktfrog007@...> wrote:
>>
>> Hello,
>>
>>
>> Here's an update to an email I sent out incorrectly (wrong address?) yesterday. Since then I got some help from Bruce Horn, WA7BMN, so this is a new and much improved version. Ignore anything I sent earlier.
>>
>>
>> Many have remarked that FT activity is like an ongoing 24/7 contest. That's true, except there's no real contest. This email is a suggestion for one that some organization might want to establish.
>>
>>
>> Since grid locs are a normal part of the FT exchange (most of the time), HF as well as VHF/UHF grid chasing has become an interest in the FT community. Grids could also be used for another interesting activity: distance scoring. Right now grid locs are used for distance scoring in the Makrothen RTTY, WW-Digi and the Stew Perry contests and perhaps others that I don't know about.
>>
>>
>> It might be fun to hold year-long events, competitions, if you like, that are based on the total distances worked by participating stations, summing up all their QSOs during the year. Score listings could be based on something fun like astronomical distances (How many trips to the moon and back? Can anyone make it to the Sun?).
>>
>>
>> This would run the whole calendar year and operation would be exactly the same as normal, everyday operation. Grids need to be exchanged or looked up in those cases where it is skipped for speed or special calls. It spirit it is similar to the CQ DX Marathon, the UBA Prefix Hunt, N3FJP's WASC, the TBDXC Ultra-Marathon and others. Results would be made available after the end of the year.
>>
>>
>> Last night I calculated the distance in my 2021 AB1J and W1W logs (combined into one wsjtx-log.adi). I loaded it into ADIFMaster, extracted the grid loc column and fed it to the ARRL distance calculator
>> at      https://contest-clubs.arrl.org/griddistancecalc.php
>>
>>
>> After running the program, I took the results, loaded it into an Excel file and summed the distances. The result was 6,786,493 km from 1930 good QSOs with grid locs.
>>
>>
>> Does this idea have any resonance? Even if not, it might be fun at the end of the year for interested people to calculate a yearly distance total. I could send out a similar email at year's end to collect scores to post if anyone is interested.
>>
>>
>> 73,
>>
>> Ken, AB1J
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>
>
>
>

Jeff Townsend

WB8LYJ/R

Gary - AG0N

#25717

On Jun 9, 2021, at 7:24 AM, Kermit Lehman via groups.io <ktfrog007@...> wrote:

Hello,

Here's an update to an email I sent out incorrectly (wrong address?) yesterday. Since then I got some help from Bruce Horn, WA7BMN, so this is a new and much improved version.

This is a “terrifying idea”! The bands are full of nothing but people wanting to go faster, quicker, more, more, more…. What’s wrong with people these days? I just don’t get it. The early predictors of this sort of hogwash taking over are getting too close to realizing their thoughts.

I’ve got a great idea! Why don’t you get on your cell phone and see how many countries, grids, states, etc., you can work? Maybe you can be first to earn CAC (called all continents, CAS(tates), etc. Hey, you could even have a called all area codes! Extra points for incurring no extra charges!

Gary - AG0N

Dick- K9OM

#25774

Hi Ken,

I love your concept for this new FT4/FT8 "distance scoring contest" based upon a standard 4-letter Grid and would enjoy operating it. Would there be anyone on this forum with the know how and time to put together a N1MM Logger+ template for this new contest?

Since "FT4 was designed for Contesting", and FT4 works really well, we need many more FT4 contests!

73, Dick- K9OM

Locked Proposal for an ongoing FT event #FT8 #FT4

Proposal for an ongoing FT event

#FT8 #FT4