As mentioned in After a ham radio contest – what needs to be done?, there are many items to do after a contest finishes with one if them being the posting of your score to the 3830 reflector (mailing list). For a week or two after a contest, some folks take all the claimed scores that are posted to 3830, aggregate them by which classes people operated in, and then send out the info to the list.

I might never be on top, but what I do for those contests I participate in is compare what I did for number of contacts, number of multipliers and total score to what others in the same operating class posted. In particular I look to see if folks with less contacts then me posted a higher score which means they were likely able to log more multipliers then I did. I look and see for those in the same general count for total contacts how I compare. I like to see, for the claimed scores posted to 3830, that no one with a higher score in my class has less contacts then me and I like to see those with more contacts with me with a lower score. An example (calls removed) is the following:

Call                QSO   Pts   QTC  Mult    hr      Score
xx8xxx             239   239   190   254           108,966
xx3xxx             247   247   140   259     14    100,233
xx2xxx             286   286    30   302     17     95,432
K2DSL              158   348   190   163    5.5     56,724 
xx1xxx             162   247    85   226  11.25     55,822
xx6xxx             138   138     0   345      4     47,610
xx7xxx             206   206    40   172            42,312
xx7xxx             250     0     0     0      6     36,750

Looking at the above, my comparison to the others is what I’d like to see with the only glaring comparison being the bottom entry with 250 contacts in 6 hours vs my 158 in 5.5 hours. But I also pulled down 190 QTCs which takes some time but no where near the time to make those same number of contacts. I was only in Run mode a couple of times and for short periods of time.

Though not mandatory and certainly a bit more subjective, if an operator posts his time in the contest I look to see how those around me compare to the time I spent participating.  Of course without knowing the other operators setups and I’m using a G5RV wire antenna and he might have a 20m beam at 75 feet, it is all speculation. My location being on the east coast might also, for some contests, provide an advantage over someone on the west coast or midwest. In other contests, they have an advantage over me.

Depending on the size of the contest I check out other classes such as those in the high power (HP) class and see how my numbers match up with those around my score or number of contacts.

Its obviously only a comparison against those that post to 3830 and it is claimed scores vs actual results, but it gives me something to think about before next weekends contest. If there are folks in my club or that I know also participated in the contest I email them about what they did, what bands they found worked well, time of day, etc.

It all just adds more info to the noggin for possible use in the future.

73,
K2DSL