Yes I agree re spotting. To be transparent at first I was a bit hesitant about
the new rules but I now see the benefit.
I have benefited from being spotted on more than one occasion. Despite
typically not taking advantage of the various on line info sources while roving
/ operating portable, being spotted is nice.
As I expect to go further afield next year I suspect being spotted will play a
bigger role in making contacts.
I'm still not entirely sold on the digi modes for roving / portable use but
will keep trying especially when other stations make the effort to run them.
In particular I do see clear benefits in the meteor scatter modes.
I'm also going to put some more thought into how to get internet while roving /
portable. (Ie. using directional cellular antennas vs simply hoping my smart
phone gets signal. I've done this before in a non ham radio setting and have
most of the bits and pieces I need, so I just need to add this to the project
list and get it done. It will be one more thing to setup and tear down
though.)
Best regards
Mark S
VE7AFZ
> On Sep 16, 2015, at 1:58 PM, Steve Stahl <ke7ihg@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> I traveled to DN02 this contest...had no phone or internet. Worked my ×@$ off
> and spent a fair amount of money.
> In the end I had 18 Q's....Would I have done better with spotting, yes I
> think so.
> I'm not sure I'll travel to any remote grids again without access to the
> world.
> It was fun and a beautiful trip but also was frustrating.
> Very hard to justify that much treasure , both in sweat , time and money.
>
> Like it or not I am good with spotting and I doubt that anyone who wants
> mults, particularly rare ones would complain
>
> Steve / KE7IHG
>
>> On Sep 16, 2015 11:50 AM, "Mark Spencer" <mark@alignedsolutions.com> wrote:
>> A few comments re this.
>>
>> I've found that MS / long haul digital qso's are challenging to make while
>> roving / portable especially if I don't have good Internet connectivity.
>> Over 90 percent of the successful MS / long haul digi mode QSO's that I have
>> made outside of contests would not have happened without constant access to
>> the internet by both me and the other station. These QSO's on average
>> probably took 30 minutes or so to complete.
>>
>> During the last contest I spent about an hour in total of my six and a half
>> hours of prime operating time in a semi rare grid trying to work MS with no
>> results. About half this time was spent in an effort to work a station in
>> a rare grid that prior to the contest had announced they were going to run
>> on digi modes. Deciding to run MS / digi modes was my choice though and on
>> balance I'd probably do it again as I would have liked to work the rare
>> grid, and I figured I had a reasonable chance of picking up at least one
>> more grid in that hour, but things didn't work out that way.
>>
>> (Between the 11am pst contest start time, and my desire to have a two hour
>> tear down and packup process done before nightfall I had about 6 and a half
>> hours to run the entire station. I was able to keep the 2M station up
>> until the very end. Staying overnight is also apparently not allowed in
>> that location.)
>>
>> I doubt I will run MS or long haul digi modes in a future contest without a
>> pre arranged sched on a frequency other than the customary calling
>> frequencies, and preferably some form of near real time communications with
>> the other station to confirm that they are looking for me.
>>
>> In hindsight during the last contest I'm almost certain I would have picked
>> up more grids and or bands by focusing on terrestrial ssb / CW for another
>> hour, but hindsight is 20/20 and I wanted to work the rare grid more than I
>> wanted to simply run up my score.
>>
>> To answer the question though, In my case at least the answers is that yes,
>> MS / digi efforts did in hindsight reduce my roving contribution. I'll put
>> more thought into running these modes or not in future contests. All that
>> being said I do like having the option to run these modes and I'm fine with
>> the rules as they are. I just need to put more thought into how I choose
>> to run my station.
>>
>> 73's Mark S
>> VE7AFZ
>>
>> Sent from my iPad
>>
>>
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