[NLRS] Jan 2003 VHF SS Claimed Scores

[John P. Toscano]

On the NLRS web page, I have inserted a place for summarizing the
claimed scores in the January 2003 VHF Sweepstakes, as has been done
for the other ARRL-sponsored contests of the last few years.
  http://nlrs.dropboxone.net/index.htm#Standings

At the moment, the link for January VHF Sweepstakes takes to you
to a page that indicates that it is still under construction.  I am
trying to automate the creation of the claimed scores page using
PHP and MySQL, since the old way (create it in Microsoft Excel and
convert to HTML) is getting rather annoying to do, and the version
of Excel that I am now using generates EXTREMELY bloated html code
that is unfriendly to all browsers other than Microsoft Internet
Explorer.  Yuck!

But you may want to take a look anyway, and follow the link on the
"under construction" page...
  http://nlrs.dropboxone.net/ContestScores/2003-01-VHF.php

...to yet another page that allows you to check your score calculations
and submit them to the NLRS webmasters for posting on the web site.
  http://nlrs.dropboxone.net/SubmitScore.htm

For now, it sends me an email with the data and I have to get the data
into a MySQL database for use by the web page, but as I mentioned,
I am working towards making that process more automated and less work
to keep maintained.  (Like everything else in life, I have to invest
in some up-front work, in this case, programming, to reap the benefit
of less long-term maintenance work.  A fair trade-off, I guess.)

Of course, if you are using a logging program, you probably have all
the error checking you need on your score, and also, the ARRL contest
robot will do even more extensive checking on your raw data.  If (when)
you can get in.  (I tried to go to the ARRL web site today and it
seemed that their server was swamped, I got tired of waiting for a
response from it and went away to do other stuff.)

I appreciate the postings that have come in so far, and hope to see
lots more.  For the purpose of my putting them into the web page format,
it would be great if you would also include your grid square location
(6 digit preferred, if available) and your operator class (SOLP, SOHP,
Limited Multi, Unlimited Multi, etc.).

I sure wish my plans didn't blow up at the last minute.  I had a lot
of fun in the very short time I did manage to operate from home late
on Sunday, so I can only imagine how much fun it must have been for the
rest of you!

73 de W0JT