Hi Dustin
Thanks for asking the question and good to have you in here. I will try to
explain what schedules mean to me.
Not during a contest period:
If your trying to work a new grid, possibly a rover passing through an
inactive grid going to the VHF conference or vacation, you might want to set
up a schedule with the rover so you can work the new grid/s during his
travels. In my case, many of the schedules are for the bands above 432 mhz
since the signals are usually weaker and the antennas are more directive. I
actually still need to work the grid that I live in on 902 and 2304 mhz so
if I can catch a rover traveling through here with those bands, you bet I am
going to do anything I can to make a schedule so I don't miss working a new
grid. I also participate in the Central States Worked all States Award and
try to work as many states as I can each year on all the bands above 50mhz.
If I need Mississippi on 222mhz for the award and I know a station that was
active on that band, I would send him an e-mail asking for a schedule since
222 mhz activity in Mississippi is very low or non existent now that Rex
passed away.
During an ARRL Contest Period:
If a rover was in my grid or nearby during the contest, I could possibly
catch him on the lower vhf bands and get him to qsy up the bands without a
prearranged schedule. Now if he was in Northern Florida, 300 miles south,
when I worked him on 2 meters and I needed him on 902 and up, he might
respond that he will be at a higher location in about 30 minutes and will
stop to point his beams toward me. So I would set up a schedule to work him
on 2 meters again in 30 minutes to coordinate the higher band contacts. Now
if I actually knew the rover guy well enough to have his cell number, I
believe it would be illegal for me to call him on the phone (during the
contest) assuming he missed the schedule 30 minutes later to reestablish
contact. The rover might also say that he will be in a new grid at 2 PM
tomorrow so I might set up another schedule to work him in another new grid.
If the conditions are crappy during the contest, I can usually work Ken
N4TUT in EL98 on all his bands up to 432. We might not be able to make it on
1296 so we would set a schedule to try another contact later in the evening
or perhaps after a storm moves through. Ken might want to do some shopping
at the grocery store and miss the schedule due to a traffic accident. I
think it would be a rule violation for him to call me on the phone or send a
message to my computer to say he wanted to move the schedule up an hour or
even cancel the schedule, though the initial solicitation was actually done
on the radio. This is the general VHF contest rule that prevents non radio
communication during the contest.
3.10. The use of non-Amateur Radio means of communication (for example,
Internet or telephone) to solicit a contact (or contacts) during the contest
period is not permitted.
If you have a good station on EME and the moon is in the right area of the
sky, you can work random qsos especially with the big guns. If you have a
marginal EME station and low power you might need to set up some schedules
to make a few contacts. The time spent on EME during a contest will keep the
terrestrial station off the air since you can only run one station at a
time. In that case you might miss a few casual contesters that show up for
an hour of operation and pick up a new multiplier off the moon so there is a
trade off.
Usually the only scatter qso's I attempt is random on 50mhz during a
contest. I occasionally get a request for a schedule on this band and others
prior to the contest.
Good luck on the bands.
Ron
Sun, Mar 1, 2009 at 3:32 PM, Dustin <ke5clr@gmail.com> wrote:
> OK I am a youngster (25) who has been into VHF and VHF contesting
> seriously for about 2 years now.
> That said, I was under the impression that the primary purposes of skeds
> was for real long haul stuff ie.meteor scatter and EME.
> Now if that is so than how would that hurt contest activity? I mean how
> much time does a station really spend on MS or EME during a contest?
>
> Just my $0.02
> Thanks for your time,
> Dustin
> KE5CLR
>
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