I've finally come to the realization that digital is here to stay. I hate that
not so many SSB and CW contacts can be made now during the contests. It's not
that they are superior to FT8, but that operating in the contest is a hell of a
lot less fun without them.
In recent years' June contests, I've competed in the Single Op/High Power
category against all others in the same category. But, I've operated solely on
50 MHz because it's a challenge to beatothers who run many or all of the higher
bands. It used to bother me a lot that I could beat others both in number of
QSOs and number of multipliers and still not win because of the points
advantages given for use of bands 222 MHz and above. Now, I welcome this
challenge, even though I know I will not win in the category. But, the guys
running all the high bands during the contest know they are competing against
me. This makes operating on the higher bands an advantageous opportunity to my
competition. The result of this is that they will make as many contacts as they
can on all available bands while being careful to not neglect 50 MHz. Planning
and coordination are important for them.
This is not the first time that people have suggested eliminating 50 MHz from
the June contest. I don't think dumping six meters is going to solve anything,
but make things worse. Rather, havingall VHF and higher bands as relevant in
the contest is the way to go.
What bothers me more than the reduced use of SSB and CW in the contests is the
fact that the digital modes are restricted to audio bandwidth zones. This could
be considered an efficient use of spectrum, but actually the conditions during
a contest or band opening in that narrow a zone are nothing less than horrid.
All one needs is one strong station in the other FT8 sequence to ruin any
possibility to compete or decode weak DX. And this problem is not going to go
away by trying to enforce which stations call on even and which call on odd.
It may be time to think about rearranging the rules, but eliminating 50 MHz
from the June contest would be a bad mistake. It would be better to consider
either limiting the number of contacts that can be made using a single mode or
by maybe having a suite of frequencies wherein FT8 QSOs could be made. As an
example 50.310 to 50.320.
The June contest is unique and should be kept the way it is as much as
possible. You shouldn't remove a band from the contest because people are
choosing to use it!
73, Paul K7CW
On Wednesday, June 19, 2019, 2:46:24 PM UTC, JamesDuffey
<jamesduffey@comcast.net> wrote:
Chris - Thanks for your comments on the impact of FT8 on the January contest.
To your first point, I don’t think that the increase in 6M activity is due
entirely to casual ops using digital modes (FT8) instead of SSB and CW. For one
thing, this year there was a significant increase, about 19% in the number of
logs submitted in the contest over 2018 while the total number of QSOs in the
contest only grew by about 3%; essentially remaining the same. If the digital
mode ops are all casual they do a much better job of submitting logs than do
the casual SSB ops.
The actual number, as well as the fraction of QSOs on all bands 144MHz and
above decreased significantly over 2018. This strongly suggests that the
increase in digital (FT8) activity came at the expense of QSOs on the higher
bands.
I think that the increase in activity in the January Contest is good and
welcome. I think that the decrease in the activity on the higher bands is not
good. To me, it appears that both of these effects are due to the digital
modes, in particular FT8. Interestingly enough, there does seem to be a
significant number of FT8 ops, who once they saw how straight forward it was to
make digital QSOs, also tried MSK144, thereby increasing that activity as well.
I am not sure what the answer is, but I fear that all the VHF contests will
become dominated by 6M, not just the June contest when Es is in. Perhaps it is
time to rethink the contesting paradigm. - Duffey KK6MC
James Duffey KK6MC
Cedar Crest NM
> I have been wondering for a while where the FT8 VHF contest ops are
> coming from and if perhaps some of the community's concern is overblown.
> I see two possibilities:
>
> * Casual ops who have that HF+6 radio and get on to play around for a
> couple hours, get some new grids towards VUCC, etc. In the past, these
> people would have done the same thing but on SSB. I have a feeling her and
> there's a lot of them. They are not serious contesters and were never
> going to be people you could work through the bands with.
>
> * More serious contesters who are wanting to try something new and are
> focusing much of their time on making digital contacts. I feel like
> there are relatively few of these people due to their likely time and
> money investment in having gear for other bands.
>
> The first group wasn't going to have 2m, 70cm, and up beams and amps at
> home. Not having digital modes available means we are losing points and
> some mults by not being able to work this group, but I don't have any
> concerns that I am missing higher band contacts due to the move from SSB
> to FT8 here.
>
> The second group is the one to be concerned with. I haven't been here
> long enough to know what the answer is, so hopefully someone else does.
>
> Personally, my roving plan for at least future June contests is to have
> two ops. One op will essentially be a mult station, dedicated to
> watching 6m on SSB and FT8 during openings (and also watching for when
> those openings occur). The other op will be the points station and
> handle all the other bands.
>
> --
> Chris Lumens - KG6CIH
> Hike * MTB * XC Ski * Haskell
> Research - Experimentation - Testing - More Testing
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