6m and VHF
During a field day a few years ago, pre-covid. I was shown a
demonstration of FT something. Not sure exactly what it was back then.
The FT whatever demo went something like this: He clicks on some menu,
then we wait and wait and wait. A minute or two later “ok he came
back”, he clicked on the menu again, then we wait and wait and wait.
“OK he got that, lets confirm the QSO”, he clicks the menu again.
Then we wait and wait and wait. The entire time holding a
conversation. Finally he is all excited “we got the QSO!”.
The time elapsed must have been 4 or 5 minutes maybe longer. It
seemed like an eternity. Now the guy who did the demo is not really a
contester type. He thought that was a fast QSO.
All I can say is boring, boring and more boring. It was painful. I am
not sure I have the words for how awful it was watching that
“digital” QSO. It was soooo bad. It sucked. How does that draw
anyone into amateur radio?
Menu clicking QSOs? I would rather play Mario cart! I would rather
play Oregon Trail!
The FD satellite setup was pretty cool though. Az-el rotor, auto
satellite tracking, QSOs were on CW. Actual human thinking involved..
Central NY used to be a VHF hot spot. Now VHF contesting is dead. You
used to be able to work a lot of local stations on CW and SSB, but not
anymore. Even simplex FM had a lot of stations to work. What killed
off the activity? The people are still here, most of them.
I’ll probably try January VHF but if it is all FTx then I’ll turn
the radios off.
Life is too short for FT8. FT8 = boring
Let’s face it. FT8 is not going to save amateur radio. Did the ARRL
get a big FT8 bump in membership? I don’t think so.
So Jim C - Double nickels buddy or should I say 0101 0101
0111 0011. Wow! Typing that was exciting! Not! 73 Scott W2LC
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