Keith,
I've been considering a very, similar, if not the same, scenario. I support
your proposal. I haven't publicly suggested it because I was concerned about
the backlash of suggesting a contest without the digital modes. My thoughts: a
June Legacy VHF+ Contest (with or without legacy digital modes for MS/EME). No
FT8/FT4 for all the reasons you made in the your email.
I'd also like to suggest changes to the January and September contests:
I generally agree with a 3 category proposal - Digital, PH/CW and Mixed. It is
one that I have been thinking a lot about. Kinda similar to the ARRL 10m
contest. However, after reading more posts and thinking in more detail, my
biggest concern is; how to shift the casual contester or digital operator from
"digital only" to operate on PH/CW and/or Mixed? I'm concerned that with the 3
category model that the digital operators (many of them may have been casual
PH/CW ops before digital or as you referred to as the "masses") may not have an
incentive to switch from digital over to PH/CW during the contest. Those ops
may not have an interest in participating in the Mixed category (or any
category) and therefore result in little or no increase in PH/CW
participation.This may leave the more serious vhf+ contesters on PH/CW or Mixed
but the number of participants on PH/CW may still be low. The potential for
another unintended consequence? Thoughts?
One thought I had is to design a well thought out Survey Monkey (or equivalent
- surely some on this list has experience with) and send out, over many
reflectors (vhf+, contests, contest clubs, etc.) and other on-line mechanisms,
to gauge operators likelihood of participating on PH/CW and what would
incentivize contest operators to operate PH/CW in vhf+ contests (January and
September).
73,
Ed K3DNE
(Now in SC - EM94ae with equipment in storage for 50 - 3456MHz just waiting for
this issue to play-out before planning hilltop, mountaintop, coastal portable
contest operations. I really don't have an interest in operating digital)
> On March 17, 2020 at 5:15 PM Jay RM < w9rm@calmesapartners.com
> mailto:w9rm@calmesapartners.com > wrote:
>
> I started out answering a private email, but then thought this might be
> better 'out there'.
>
> FT modes are "out of the barn", loose in the wild and have wide
> acceptance,
> so you can't look the other way or ban them - that would not reflect well
> on the contest community. Education will not work, as the people who need
> the education on how to contest (..just run the rate !) don't care - they
> are just there for the Q's, not the score. Contesters mostly know they are
> hurting their score by having to work everyone on FT8, but they need to
> get
> the Qs, even if it's much slower than "the old days". The individual
> contester need to decide whether he/she wants to.
>
> I don't know what would work to bring people back to faster rate modes.
> Personally, I think the days of 200+/hour on 6M E are over. I have a
> single suggestion that I havent put a lot of thought into, but it might
> lead somewhere.
>
> SInce the FT8 boom has two main effects, one, lowering Q totals and run
> rate on 6 and, two, depopulating the bands above 2M, let's either shunt
> FT8
> modes off to a separate contest or category for JUNE ONLY. June is where
> all the Qs on 6 are made AND June is arguably where you see the least
> activity above 2M, since it's likely everybody is busy on 6 to a greater
> degree than in January or September. If we need to kill off digital meteor
> scatter in June by simply saying NO digital, fine. BTW, I'm a HUGE user of
> digital meteor scatter and have been since the very first FSK441 version
> of
> WSJT. But, I would accept not having it if it brought back SSB/CW ops.
>
> January and September can remain status quo. FT8/4 was ready made for 6M
> with weak signals (I.E. little or no sporadic E) and the need for digital
> meteor scatter is much greater for the same reason.
>
> If the activity in June dries up because of the proposed change, we can
> still call it a successful experiment, go back to allowing ALL modes and
> acknowledging the death of SSB/CW on VHF.
>
> -W9RM
>
> Keith J Morehouse
> Managing Partner
> Calmesa Partners G.P.
> Olathe, CO
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