From: ARRL-Awards@... <ARRL-Awards@...> on behalf of Dave AA6YQ <aa6yq@...>
Sent: Friday, November 26, 2021 12:30:15 PM
To: ARRL-Awards@... <ARRL-Awards@...>
Subject: Re: [ARRL-Awards] Grid chase 2022

Here's the real point... why bother tying these events to LOTW at all if  you have a resource crisis?  The operating event should be the primary focus. 

 

+ Because even resuscitating NPOTA or Grid Chase requires development work. Remember the Leaderboards?

 

If LOTW is an issue, then use the Award Checkers through ARRL affiliated clubs to validate applications and TRUST people to attach a simple log on their application for the reward.  Longer term they can submit their logs to LOTW outside of busy periods to  even out demand load. 

+ An operating even that requires no software development would not be problematic, assuming the other resources you suggest could be appropriately organized. I suspect that they would be less attractive, as there would be no realtime scoring.

If something happened in 2013 that still bothers you, I'd recommend some outside the box solution brainstormibg instead of being a "Dr. No"

 

+ As a member of the ARRL's "LoTW Committee" back in 2016, I participated in an effort to develop a roadmap for LoTW. That roadmap was iterative, meaning that the current LoTW implementation would be incrementally improved though a sequence of public releases to achieve the desired improvements in usability, personalization, performance, and revenue generation. Re-implementation of the LoTW Server was the first step in that roadmap - successfully completed, but delayed by the diversion of development resources to support three on-air activities. Sadly, the ARRL re-assigned all development resources away from LoTW in early 2018, a situation that continues to this day. Even more sadly, ARRL management has reached the demonstrably false conclusion that the current implementation of LoTW cannot be incrementally improved, planning instead to start over from scratch with a goal of producing an LoTW 2.0 several years from now. Meanwhile, a year has elapsed without successfully hiring an IT Director who could recruit the necessary development team.

+ The ARRL's new plan reeks of 1980s-style Waterfall Development, long abandoned by most organizations with critical dependencies on software. I stand by the iterative roadmap developed by the ARRL's LoTW Committee.

de AA6YQ