This is 100% on the mark.
I find FT-8 boring and I am an observer not an operator. Yes the Mode
works for very weak signals but when stations are s-9 why use FT-8. Last
contest to work my own Grid Square had to work a station 12 miles away
on FT-8.
I have been in VHF Contests since 1970 and I read that LOG submissions
are up but our Limited Multi Op hilltop station our QSO totals are down.
I do contest for the fun and challenge of working stations and trying to
get one more Grid. With FT-8 no joy, no feeling of accomplishment, Just
boring time spent watching a computer screen and knowing no operator
skill involved.
From FN21OC
73 Walt N2WM
Trustee of W2LV VHF Group.
On 06-Feb-21 22:43, Jay RM wrote:
.. George, you've pretty much read my mind and put my exact thoughts into
words.
-W9RM
Keith Morehouse
via MotoG
On Sat, Feb 6, 2021, 7:55 PM George Fremin <geoiii@kkn.net> wrote:
Hello fellow VHF contesters.
I have only been loosely following this thread recently. I have not been
reading many of the messages to this list for a few years now so I may not
be fully up on what all the thoughts have been. I think I have some idea
of a few folks feelings on this list and I have been having similar
conversations with a few other VHF and HF ops I know.
The last year or two of VHF contests that I have operated have me
questioning if I want to continue to put time and effort into doing
contests on or for that matter even spending much time on these bands in
general. In addition to the VHF contesting I do, I do a lot of HF
contests. I choose not to do any digital contests. I have never found
them to be very interesting to me. I enjoy the challenge of using my ears
and brain to copy CW and voice signals. I have spent a large portion of my
life now learning how to do this pretty well. Letting some machine do that
for me takes removes the skill that I have worked so hard acquire. As a
result I do not find the digital modes to be that much fun.
I am not sure what the answer is here - I think trying to do mixed modes
will be a mess - although it would help my QSO totals.
Back 10 years or more ago I posted a message to this list where I stated
that I was not going to operate using digital modes - of course this was
when it was just MSK or maybe some EME - and I held to that - and since
very few of the folks and none of the casual folks were doing those modes
it did not affect my scores too much. We have seen the rise in EME but the
MSK totals seem about the same but the big change has been FT8 - and that
has become the mode that everyone seem to have living on these days. And
as others have noted that has really hurt contact rates and made it hard to
move folks between bands. So in the last few contests I have done more and
more digital when I am at home. I have been doing the Sep and Jan contests
as a rover with my girlfriend using her call - and we have not do any
digital from the car but we can tell that is hiring our score as more and
more folks seem to be stuck on FT8.
As I stated above this all has me wondering why I am on these bands -
since most of the activity is on a mode I do not enjoy.
One of my thoughts has been that I will go back to the way I used to do it
before and only do SSB and CW going forward and let whatever I miss on the
digital modes go by the wayside. I have no interest in putting up a large
EME array on any bands - since that would just mean more digital contacts -
and for me that is no fun. So I might do the contests in this way going
forward - SSB/CW only and temper my expectiaons on my scores and likely
never ‘winning’ these contests ever again. One of my long term goals was
to make over 2000 contacts on 6m in the June contest. But it has become
clear to me that this is likely not possible any longer due to the fact
that so many casual folks stick to FT8 even when the band is wide open and
the rate I just not there. So be it. I have to do what is fun for me. Or
maybe I just get rid of all the VHF stuff while the getting is good and
move on. I am still unsure.
One thing I was wondering about for the the past few weeks was how is the
playing out in Europe. So today I wrote to a German ham that I know has
done VHF contests and he replied. I what he said interesting:
The major VHF+ contests over here (1st weekend of March [2m+], June
[23cm+], July [2m+], September [2m only], October [70cm+] and November
[2m CW only]) are still unchanged, only allowing SSB and CW contacts,
and I don't see that changing anytime soon. On 2m, the top stations
will routinely work more than 1000 QSOs. I don't think the big guns are
interested in using FT8, and they're the ones sitting in the contest
committees of the various clubs, where rules could be changed.
That said, activity on VHF *outside* contests is predominantly FT8 (or
the various meteorscatter digital modes) nowadays, but in general I
guess that FT8 has overall increased non-contest activity, so maybe
that's not such a bad thing.
Maybe trip to Europe for some VHF contests would be fun for me.
I still do not know what do so here in the North America - maybe we could
make one of the VHF contests SSB/CW only and see how that goes?
That seems like it would be fun. And it would be something different -
and that is a good thing in my book - why do they all have to be the same?
I am sure there are others that will disagree.
73,
George Fremin III
K5TR
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