[Ham-Mac] Hallucinations from this side of the Pond!

[Jonathan G0DVJ]

OK since I started this thread I feel obliged to make a further 
contribution ...  :)
Thanks to all those who have contributed to the discussion.

On Feb 1, 2005, at 12:36 pm, Walter O'Brien, W2WJO wrote:

> Seriously though, it's a good point, but I think most "big gun" 
> contesters are the next step up to the holy grail here - very few of 
> them will probably be willing to change to something new, no less 
> something Mac. I mean, look at the kludginess of some of the top 
> software now, but they use it because, they always used it!

Agreed.


> Except for Field Day I do most of the HF contesting alone anyway, and 
> the VHF in a small team - but it's easy enough to import my ADIF data 
> into the "master" log for conversion to Cabrillo (or whatever) and 
> submission as a team, so it wouldn't matter if I was using Mac and 
> they were using PC.
>
> You've got a point about convincing the PC developers to add a Mac 
> client, but how many PC developers can write Mac software? And if so, 
> how many do it well, and Mac style? Most PC to Mac ports I've ever 
> seen were pretty bumpy and ugly, although I'm sure there are 
> exceptions.
>
> But for 80% of my contest needs, a stand-alone with import/export via 
> ADIF and/or Cabrillo will let me interact with the rest of a PC team, 
> but lets me use a properly functioning, Mac contest program instead of 
> a clunky PC program on a computer I would otherwise avoid.

Agreed again!    Despite my "hallucinations" in the original post, most 
of my contesting is either Single Operator (I would like to do more 
SO2R hence support for that mentioned although I would happily do 
without that) or Multi-Operator Single Transmitter in small teams.   As 
Brian Short said, this applies to the vast majority of contesters.   
Most of the big groups who do Multi-Multi already have PC solutions 
that work - I was just aiming at theoretical completeness in the 
original post.  I guess I was mixing the thoughts of (a) what is the 
minimum feature set that would make a really good performing basic 
contest logger for the mass of the Mac Contest community with (b) if 
you build in features that attract all contester types (even the big 
guns) then that may widen the net for a Golden Bullet Killer Contesting 
Logger Application.
I don't think inter-working between PC and Mac contest logging software 
is a very significant feature - the standardisation of Cabrillo for 
entries and ADIF for subsequent consolidation of logs for a station.

On the question of viability and interest ...

I can't help thinking that even if we only assume that the % of Mac 
contesters is reflected by the Mac market share as a whole that, taking 
into account the amount of activity on the bands on major contest 
weekends of the year, there must be at least the number of people into 
contests compared to those who do Satellite Operating at any weekend!   
And yet apps like MacDopplerPro seem to be viable in terms of numbers 
of users.   I have asked the list owner if we may know how many are 
subscribed to this list (without reply yet) so that Don's observation 
of the numbers interested on here can be put in context.   If 15 or so 
people expressed interest (within 24 hours) from a list membership of 
60 then it means something different to the same number responding on a 
list membership of 600 or 6000 :)    However I still think that many 
contesters (a huge % of the ham community judging by activity levels on 
the bands) will only be reached by word of mouth or on the contest 
email lists no matter what computing platforms they have available.

> Will check out that java cross-platform thing, that could be 
> interesting...

I also downloaded jLog and ran it successfully briefly this evening - I 
agree with Walter's conclusion in his later email to the list.  It is 
one of the better tries I have seen but doesn't come close to a certain 
OSX native (rather than Java) LoggerDX program we all know and 
appreciate!


> On Feb 1, 2005, at 7:01 AM, Don Agro wrote:
>
>> I am finding this thread very interesting and wonder about one point 
>> that hasn't been brought up yet...
>>
>> On 28-Jan-05, at 4:37 PM, Jonathan G0DVJ wrote:
>>
>>> - Rendezvous support for Multi-multi operation over ethernet or 
>>> airport networks.

Again here I was theorising about extras in terms of say two mac based 
contest systems working together perhaps one on a run and one on a mult 
station to co-operate in the issue of serial numbers - I didn't think 
of this in the contest of mixed operating system platforms within a 
team contest set-up.

Reading between the lines of what different people have said in their 
contributions, I think my views of what constitutes the minimum 
essentials from my original "dreamt" feature set is very close to the 
views of most others.   I think the consensus is fairly broad - 
particularly if you consider just Single Station contesting.

73,
Jonathan G0DVJ
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