Hello to all interested in VHF contesting.....Arliss-W7XU has raised a
caution that no one seems to have considered. Unintended consequences
are always the result of changes....most especially changes that are
made in haste trying to "fix" a perceived problem, that is not really
that much of a problem to begin with.
I do not believe that any of those proposed changes will help VHF
contesting--I think that they will hurt it, maybe badly. I propose that
we DO NOTHING about the VHF rules for at least a year, maybe more.
Bob's proposals might generate more contacts, especially for stations in
the populous North East, but it will NOT bring in any new participants.
Generating "activity" among the folks that are already operating strikes
me as mostly a poor way to run a railroad. For those in the highly
populated areas, manufactured contacts will abound, further hurting
those of us that live in the sticks.
Jay-W9RM is correct as well. Currently, the masses, are doing FT8 on 6M
because they perceive that they are making all these contacts that
previously were very difficult to make.....and hence their score must be
higher. Except that it is not, because their rate is so bad--so scores
actually go down. Give me two hours on SSB on 6M with the band wide
open and I will give up all the FT8 contacts. Eventually, folks will
figure this one out. For me, the FT8 "problem" exists only on 6M. We
work a lot of SSB on 2M and we move folks to 222 and 432 as necessary.
It may happen that FT8 will "take over" 2M also, but I certainly hope not.
The correct way to look at this is the way that HFers look at it. Many,
many HF contests have been won by stations that moved from one band to
another at just the right time to maximize their contacts. Contests
have been lost by stations that stayed on 20M when the rate was slowing
down when they should have moved down to 40M.....or they should have
moved from 40M to 80M. All this is just a part of HF contest strategy.
No one is proposing a batch of new rules to "fix" this problem. For us,
choosing the right band and the right mode to maximize contacts is just
part of VHF contesting.
Let's leave everything alone for the time being. All of us can consider
the situation and maybe some new and better rules may come forward in
the future. Arliss and Jay are two of the top VHFers running around.
We need to pay careful attention to their cautious views.
73 Marshall K5QE
On 3/17/2020 2:59 AM, w7xu@w7xu.com wrote:
Just a few thoughts from the middle of the country --
The more populated areas of the country already have a huge advantage
when it comes to making QSOs compared to those of us who have fewer
than a dozen stations within 200 miles. While I support the idea of
getting folks back on cw and phone, making analog QSOs count twice (or
4 times!) as much as a digital QSO really puts those of us in the
hinterlands at a disadvantage.
Likewise, getting points for separate QSOs using CW, SSB and digital
also gives a big advantage to the population centers. Combining CW
with SSB vs digital, as K8MR suggested (but for a different reason),
would lessen that discrepancy somewhat as well as take care of the
mixed mode QSO question. Maybe with just 2 categories and a distance
factor, it would be more palatable for those of us away from the east
coast or other populated areas. (Or maybe too much of a change for
others).
I don't like the idea of a station only being able to make a CW QSO in
a CW sub-band. There are a lot of places in the country where it was
tough to find anyone straying from 144.200 even in "the good old
days." I think it would take a lot of arm twisting to get stations to
move to 144.050 in my area.
The bottom line is that I'm in favor of recovering the lost cw and
phone activity, but let's not overlook the unintended consequences.
73, Arliss W7XU
Currently marooned near Tierra del Fuego (and you thought you were
in the sticks), but normally in EN13
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