So today's 24, 47, and 76 GHz bands are yesterday's 220 and 440? There are a
few guys up there working on stuff for those bands and mostly doing EME but
also some terrestrial work. Do they spend their time lamenting the lack of
contacts up there? Maybe, but more likely over a beer rather than spending a
lot of time discussing it endlessly in chat rooms and on reflectors. The
point is that they network to find like-minded hams to work with, wherever
they are. Some of you are familiar with the microwave reflector run by
WA1MBA. There is a wealth of useful info there and yes, the occasional gripe
about activity but generally they are optimists about our uW bands.
Certainly they would like to see more activity but they know that negatively
toned talk like I am hearing here doesn't result in much improvement.
Activity and enthusiasm counts!
To those who have decided that the return on investment of time and money
just isn?t there anymore, that's your call. Personally, I'm in it for the
challenge, the fun, the friends, and the learning curve. The wallpaper is
nice, as our contest group has made the LM Top 10 a respectable number of
times. Yeah, some contests have next to nothing in the way of propagation so
we don?t go at it floored all weekend, but we do try to use the slow times
to improve the station, or our techniques, or try to learn more about the
digital modes. We also have spent some time between contests recruiting new
operators to work with us, especially younger ones who might be trainable as
tower climbers since we are getting to be a bit too old to be hanging around
100' in the air for very long, if at all.
Maybe part of the activity problem is that if we have a team of 5 operators,
that's potentially 4 stations that aren't otherwise working the contest.
Could a rules change regarding operators working from multiple stations be
in order to help the log count? You could work from your home station and
with one contest team during the contest, provided you submitted a log and
gave out contacts to more than just your contest team's station. You could
put a minimum number of contacts on it but that would invite a bunch of
whining about not hearing anyone else on the band. Funny how rules have a
way of inviting folks to find ways to get around them, but I digress.
I am a little concerned that some of the big time multi-op stations are
coming to LM; that is going to mean tougher competition. I guess we'll have
to up our game!
Tom Holmes, N8ZM
-----Original Message-----
From: VHFcontesting [mailto:vhfcontesting-bounces@contesting.com] On Behalf
Of beamar
Sent: Monday, February 10, 2014 4:09 PM
To: vhfcontesting@contesting.com
Subject: Re: [VHFcontesting] Trends in VHF/UHF Weak Signal Operations
On Feb 10, 2014, at 3:49:01 PM, "Les Rayburn" <les@highnoonfilm.com> wrote:
How many amateurs would really care if we lose our allocation at 3 GHz?
The answer to the question posed above is very few. But, that may not always
be the case. The following text is a quote from a presentation on weak
signal work that I gave at a recent hamfest:
"Put hams on 200M and down! In 1912, the frequencies above 1500 KHz were
considered useless. Amateur Radio got 40M as a band, in 1924. Reading the DX
column, in the January 1925 issue of QST, it seems that no frequency above
75M was considered to be useful for DX. Hams got 10M in, 1927. It was the
early 1940s, before anyone considered it useful. In 1946, many hams referred
to 2M as a ?flashlight? band. That is, propagation was akin to light waves.
In 1969, when I was licensed, 2M was considered to be the highest frequency
band that was useful for communications. ?You can?t talk anywhere on 220
MHz?, I was told. In 1979, when I bought my first 440 FM radio, I was told
, ?You can?t talk very far on 440?. Now days, many Radio Amateurs thinks it
takes the resources of a governmental agency or a telephone company to
successfully communicate above 450 MHz."
So, following the trend, as outlined in my P/P presentation. It will
probably be another twenty to forty years, before the average ham considers
3 Gigs to be useful.
Buddy WB4OMG
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