This is all good and very true. BUT, the problem is only a small
percentage of ops on 6M during a June or July contest really CARE if they
are winning or losing.
The vast majority of ops the "big guys" work during a killer run, be it on
6 during the ARRL June VHF contest or on 40 during Sweepstakes phone, are
only there casually. You or I can stand on our street corner box and
preach the gospel of using SSB (OK, or CW...) during an opening,
threatening hell-fire, damnation and, gasp!, a contest lost and the
majority of those we work will think, "Why should I care ? I'm not a
competitor anyway. I'm just in it for a contact, a new grid, for something
to do untill the game comes on TV...".
FT8 (I separate that mode out as the real killer of contest rate - MSK144 &
JT65 ENHANCE your score - FT8 does the opposite) is a fine mode, being used
improperly by the very operators serious contesters need to put up 'the
good numbers'. You will probably not stop this by traditional means - such
as education through mentoring or Contest University. Heck, maybe it
SHOULDN'T be stopped and just accepted as a natural change in the VHF
contesting scene, like grid squares replaced ARRL sections as mults.
If that is the case, MANY traditional ops, unfortunately for the casual
ops, those with some of the bigger signals, will leave (and are leaving...)
the band for other endeavors more satisfying then mouse clicking all day.
If this was happening to HF contesting you would see rapid movement for
change.
I believe the HF contesting movers and shakers don't realize or care that
VHF has a problem that is lowering scores and diminishing contesting
skills. VHF contests, by definition, allow all modes to be used. HF
contests have CW weekends and Phone weekends.
The question on 6M is not whether you love or hate FT8, it's a matter of
fundamentally changing the state of the VHF contesting art for the worse.
If this is acceptable to the majority, so be it. If it's not acceptable,
what changes need to be made ?
-W9RM
Keith Morehouse
via MotoG
On Wed, Sep 25, 2019, 4:30 PM Marshall-K5QE <k5qe@k5qe.com> wrote:
>
> The really great ops that sometimes visit here can do more than 200
> contacts per hour.
> What that means is that if you are fooling around with FT8, making 30
> contacts an hour(a fair estimate) while a big Es opening occurs, you
> will lose the contest. On the other hand if you spend loads of time
> calling CQ on SSB, hoping for an opening that never occurs, you will
> lose the contest.
>
> The contest knowledge and skill is in knowing when to be running SSB,
> when to be running MSK144, when to use JT65, and when to use FT8. I can
> almost guarantee that if you blindly park on one of the FT8 "watering
> holes" for the entire contest, you will not do as well as someone that
> uses a more "adventurous" approach.
>
>
>
>
>
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