While I'm in favor of keeping with the gentleman's agreement of no contesting
on the WARC bands, I'm not too worried about the VT QSO party allowing FT8 on
WARC bands during its QSO party being the start of a slippery slope. I think it
is a good think to periodically check to see if sentiment has changed. I think
most of us on this reflector are old enough to remember early WARC enthusiasts
being angry when DXpeditions started regularly causing pileups on the WARC
bands - that sentiment has certainly changed.
On this area,at least among contesters - I don't think it has. When the ARRL DX
Advisory Committee asked about changing the 5BDXCC rules to allow the WARC
bands to be part of the "five bands" for the award, I was all for it - for the
majority of ham operators who are 40 years old or younger, the WARC bands are
just bands - any new radio they bought just included them.
On the PVRC refector, I mentioned that at some point the hobby might say "Yes,
the WARC bands are just bands - let's allow contesting on them" and the
reaction was overwhelmingly negative from PVRCers. We all kind of realize it is
nice to have some haven for non-contesters on those few weekends per year that
contesting really takes over the bands vs. just actually adds activity - and
often proving the bands are far from dead!
73 John K3TN
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