I've been watching this for several days, weeks, months.
I have some simple observations.
Back in the 80's, during a September contest I believe, there was a huge tropo
opening between the midwest (Cincinnati area) to northern Texas. Unfortunately,
the band opened around 2 AM. Al Ward, WB5LUA then, was the only station I could
find to work. For hours we would say hi inbetween calling CQ's. Just think if
we could have called others and said get on the band is open!! But by the rule
definition, this is a grey area, is it soliciting contacts?
Every time you make a sked, either before or during the contest, you get
someone else on the air, and the chances are, they will work others. This is a
GOOD thing..... I think.
As I believe Marshall pointed out many posts ago, it's one thing to get someone
on, get your 2 degree beamwidth dish pointed the right direction, hope your
transverter hasn't drifted more than 20 KHz off frequency and hope the guy's
clock on the other end is sync'ed to WWV like yours is. And then work him by
exchanging calls and the report that the contest sponsor has required you to
give out.
Yes, you could do this by first working them on 6, 2, 222, or 432 and then just
moving them, but what if you have choosen not to have those bands? How many
answers to CQ's do you get on 903 or 1296? Divide that number by 10 and you get
the number of times you get answered on 2304 and divide that by 10 for 3456 and
up.
So I guess if you are not calling your buddy and saying "get on and work me but
don't work anyone else", then getting more folks on the air any way you can
helps activity which generally helps everyone.
Now obviously, you can't have on the phone, chat net or even a different VHF
band while trying to make a contact and "coach" the QSO.
Bottom line is, there is some reason there is a decline in VHF participation,
and we need to understand why and try to fix it.
73,
Terry
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