Dave, you need to look at the BIG picture here. Be happy you live in or
near the "Sprint corridor" and actually have access to enough activity to
make it through the first hour.
Lamenting about not running the entire 4 hours rings kinda hollow on those
that don't have enough activity on ANY VHF band - including 2M - to make it
through the first 10 minutes.
I'm not complaining - it is what it is.
-W9RM
Keith J Morehouse
Managing Partner
Calmesa Partners G.P.
Olathe, CO
On Fri, Oct 2, 2020 at 7:24 AM Chet S <chetsubaccount@snet.net> wrote:
> Hi Dave,
>
> Many contests suffer the tapering off of activity after a while. Monday
> night football, super-bowls, debates, Sunday afternoon sweepstakes
> doldrums, family time, etc.
> And nowadays we are constantly pressed to add something "new and better"
> into our lives, and if we take more on, then there is less relax time for
> our other stuff.
>
> Maybe I'm old school but still highly enjoy hearing a weak signal, turning
> the beam to peak it, and trying to work it. Ahhh, that xyz station
> improvement I made this summer is working...or not...or pick a beam
> direction and go fishing to see what you can catch. Make your own decisions
> when and whether to call toward a population density direction or toward
> missing grids. SSB vs. FT8. To me that is the name of the game. I do not
> like the idea of pre-arranged contacts or arranging them in real time, that
> seems more like DXing than Contesting and not very satisfying.
>
> The sprints are a good fun break from the workday, but are 4 hours a bit
> much? It's supposed to be a sprint not a marathon, so maybe with shorter
> hours the station activity would be more consistent throughout.
>
> 73,
> Chet, N8RA
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: VHFcontesting <vhfcontesting-bounces+chetsubaccount=
> snet.net@contesting.com> On Behalf Of David Olean
> Sent: Thursday, October 1, 2020 5:01 PM
> To: (Radio) VHF Contesting <VHFcontesting@contesting.com>; 222 MHz
> ACTIVITY <222Activity@Groups.io>
> Subject: [VHFcontesting] An idea for the sprints.
>
> It isn't much of an idea, more a suggestion, to not abandon the VHF
> sprints when activity dies down after the initial spurt of activity. I was
> not a big fan of opening up chat pages for coordination of contacts in VHF
> contests. My reasoning was that it favored stations that had good internet
> connectivity and penalized those that did not.
>
> That being said, we now have the ability to set up schedules for almost
> impossible contacts simply by coordinating on internet sites dedicated to
> such things. So why did everyone bail out after an hour or so on the
> 222 Sprint? The few diehards left were ones that I had already
> contacted. It would have been great to try some long haul tropo contacts
> on CW or even FT4/FT8 with stations that are normally not in range. Trying
> and failing at a 400+ mile QSO with a 25 watt station or trying a meteor
> scatter contact is much more agreeable than spending an hour calling CQ and
> tuning around on a almost empty band with no takers and no results. A few
> posts for skeds by several of the diehards also went unheeded towards the
> latter half of the sprint. The last hour, when things die down is the time
> to experiment and see what your station can do even if it is outside of
> your comfort zone. The worst that can happen is that the path does not
> work! Then, there is the problem of which chat page to monitor. Having
> poor connectivity makes monitoring a number of them impossible for many
> operators. On a good day, I might be able to cover two chat pages. We
> should set up a standardization for the sprints so
> people are all looking at the same place.
>
> So next time, think twice about quitting early! Do something exciting
> instead.
>
> 73
>
> Dave K1WHS
>
> _______________________________________________
> VHFcontesting mailing list
> VHFcontesting@contesting.com
> http://lists.contesting.com/mailman/listinfo/vhfcontesting
>
> _______________________________________________
> VHFcontesting mailing list
> VHFcontesting@contesting.com
> http://lists.contesting.com/mailman/listinfo/vhfcontesting
>
_______________________________________________
VHFcontesting mailing list
VHFcontesting@contesting.com
http://lists.contesting.com/mailman/listinfo/vhfcontesting
|