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Re: [VHFcontesting] 6M only category & other ideas.

To: dave olean <k1whs@metrocast.net>, VHF Contest Reflector <vhfcontesting@contesting.com>
Subject: Re: [VHFcontesting] 6M only category & other ideas.
From: Bill Olson <callbill@hotmail.com>
Date: Sun, 11 Jan 2015 16:24:36 +0000
List-post: <vhfcontesting@contesting.com">mailto:vhfcontesting@contesting.com>
Well put Dave!!! As usual, your sensibility and mine about this are pretty much 
in sync! Sam had it right.. I miss that old bugger.. Hey, do you think if we 
went back to using Megacycles that activity would improve??
 
bill, K1DY
 
> From: k1whs@metrocast.net
> To: jamesduffey@comcast.net; vhfcontesting@contesting.com; 
> rt_clay@bellsouth.net
> Date: Sat, 10 Jan 2015 19:43:07 +0000
> Subject: Re: [VHFcontesting] 6M only category & other ideas.
> 
> Jim,
>     Forgive the lateness of my response, but I have been in thinking mode 
> prior to replying.
>     I would agree with you about the addition of a six meter only category 
> causing a fair amount of havoc in the current VHF contest format. Higher 
> freq contacts would dry up in precisely the areas where we all want to 
> encourage more participation. (far away from the Golden Corridor between NYC 
> and Washington DC.)  I enjoy reading all your posts. Ditto on the Limited 
> Rover class too.
>      I am bothered by numerous comments lately that indicate that 
> participant "A" will stop contesting if certain rules are changed or modes 
> are forbidden. I am also bothered by the comments that some new VHF operator 
> will not enter the contest unless there is a pre made category to match his 
> or her specific conditions.  So if an HF operator discovers one day that his 
> 5 kilobuck competition grade transceiver has a six meter position, and he 
> uses it one weekend in a VHF contest, why should he or she expect to win 
> anything?  Rather than making the fish bowl smaller to cater to the fact 
> that his radio only has one VHF band position, I think the proper thing to 
> do is give him the incentive to try to improve his score by trying new bands 
> and making improvements. The problem is that HFers think a band is dead when 
> they hear no signals on it. HF contesters are also very competitive. Their 
> participation is only assured when there are stations waiting to be worked 
> on the VHF bands, much as you described also in ur post. Attracting HF ops 
> to VHF is the only way to save our VHF bands. VHF is dying now.  (I just got 
> on 160 meters so I can work people in the winter. It is not possible on VHF 
> now.)
>     Building activity on the VHF bands will not be done by manipulating a 
> few contest rules. Activity will be built by having a nucleus of constant 
> activity on the higher bands. I am not holding my breath.  The bands are 
> very quiet in Maine as a rule. They have been getting worse over the past 
> few years.  I applaud the efforts of a small but growing group on 144.205. 
> They are making a point of getting on every morning at 8 AM on 144.205. Stan 
> KA1ZE started it and it has really grown and caused a resurgence of activity 
> in the NYC area. This effort needs to be implemented across the country. It 
> also requires a lot of missionary work and effort. It is not for the faint 
> of heart. It is a big committment. The good news is that results beget more 
> results! There needs to be a reason for many more people to get on the VHF 
> bands
>     This brings up another point. You are not going to have any real success 
> on VHF unless you put the same amount of money or resources into your 
> antenna as you put into your radio. I know some ops are in places that do 
> not allow large antennas. For that situation, portable or rover operation is 
> a good, if part time, solution.   If you hook up your $5,000 HF radio to a 
> long wire, simple vertical, or small indoor antenna, you are not going to 
> hear what the bands really offer, and no one will know that you even exist.
>     Where is Sam Harris when we need him? He was W1FZJ/ W1BU, the VHF column 
> editor back in the early 1960's. He was constantly railing to push the 
> VHFers of the time to get off their butts and make their stations perform 
> better.  If you could not work 500 miles on 144 MHz in 1960, your station 
> was broken in his opinion. He backed all this up by telling you how to do it 
> every month in his column. Lately the VHF column talks of  50 MHz openings 
> and of people hanging around waiting for certain paths to be workable. It 
> reminds me of the gossip pages in old newspapers. "The Ellis's  had visitors 
> over the last week when they entertained the Garvey fanmily from East 
> Paducah. They canned 7 quarts of peach preserves, and played Canasta." 
> There are very few pages devoted to pushing the envelope in other areas of 
> our fascinating VHF hobby. Contrast the columns of today with one of Sam's 
> columns. I am enclosing a portion of an old column for your enjoyment....
> 
> If you have read this far, you are probably sitting there asking yourself, 
> “What does he expect me to do now?” The answer is, I expect you to get to 
> work, and prove that you do have the initiative, the ambition, or just plain 
> gumption, to be listed as a member of the v.h.f. fraternity. Look around at 
> your receiving setup. How much feedline loss do you have? If it’s more than 
> 1/2 a dB, fix it. Do you have a tunable coaxial filter in front of your 
> converter? If you don’t, why not? The use of a coaxial filter in front of 
> your converter almost invariably provides an improvement in received 
> signal-to-noise ratio. In addition, it filters out the commercial garbage 
> generally experienced in the urban areas. And it provides the first step 
> towards constructing your parametric amplifier. I don’t suggest that you go 
> out and buy a coaxial filter, but rather that you get busy and build one. 
> The best test for a properly operating filter is to install it in front of 
> your converter while listening to a weak signal. If the signal remains the 
> same or improves slightly, your filter is doing its job. If the signal 
> decreases in strength, one of two things is happening: (a) your filter is 
> not working properly or (b) your converter is matched to the feed line 
> better than any converter I have ever seen. In any event, with a 
> perfectly-matched converter the coaxial filter loss should not exceed 0.2 
> dB.
> 
> If you got this far and you still don’t know how to build a parametric 
> amplifier, and if you don’t want to wait for a 1296 Mc paramp being 
> described in QST next month, I suggest you drop me a line stating your 
> problem. When it comes to parametric amplifiers I am as full of helpful 
> hints as Lew McCoy talking to a Novice.
> 
> From Sam Harris' VHF column "The World Above 50 Megacycles"  September, 1960
> 
> 
> 
>     One odd thing is that some of the best propagation on VHF occurs in the 
> more southerly climes in places where activity is slight. If there was more 
> activity there, scores would easily outstrip anything done in PA, CT or MA 
> where conditions are usually not so good. 500 mile contacts in the southeast 
> are much easier than up in the colder, tropo free zone where most of the 
> activity is now. The problem is to get people active there with good antenna 
> systems. Texas Georgia, N Carolina, and Florida have huge ham populations. 
> They are just not on VHF in any large numbers.
>     Do not look to the ARRL to fix our VHF bands. We have to look at a 
> mirror instead. The ARRL can help to improve activity however.   One way the 
> ARRL might help is to support VHF more aggressively and encourage many more 
> short operating activities on the pages of QST or on their website. We need 
> a contest every weekend during the Summer months. It can be a small contest 
> for just a short time period, say four hours. It just has to be there to 
> attract a few operators, and build from there. It can also be different each 
> week to address different situations. VHF area clubs are important here too. 
> They need to be involved. Note that a radio club in Oregon sponsors one of 
> the most enjoyable 160 meter contests of the year. (The Stew Perry) 
> Remember that much of the VHF activity in the Golden Corridor happened there 
> because of VHF oriented club activity that started at a critical time. 
> Maybe local VHF clubs can sponsor activity periods or contests in specific 
> geographical areas. There are many state QSO parties on the low bands. 
> Indeed there are many contests on HF every day. VHF needs the same 
> treatment. Clubs need a Contest Coordinator more than just about anything 
> else.  How about a contest period where everyone is limited to 10 watts. How 
> about a contest where points are only scored when you work a specific area? 
> I would like to see a short activity/contest where we all have to contact 
> stations in, say, Ontario to get points. It would be goofy, but it would 
> foster activity and cause VE3s to get on the air. The next time it could be 
> Vermont or Oregon. How about SSB only?  CW only? meteor scatter only?  How 
> about a contest where everyone has to work a rover?  Of course the results 
> would have to be tabulated and written up even if on the web. I see a lot of 
> room for creativity here. The VHF clubs have to get tremendously involved to 
> pull such things off. Things need to be shaken up. We need a VHF sprint type 
> event every few nights! We need reasons to be active.  We all need to be the 
> solution.
> 
> 73
> 
> Dave K1WHS
> 
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "James Duffey" <jamesduffey@comcast.net>
> To: "VHF Contesting Reflector" <vhfcontesting@contesting.com>; 
> <rt_clay@bellsouth.net>
> Cc: "James Duffey" <jamesduffey@comcast.net>
> Sent: Tuesday, January 06, 2015 1:09 AM
> Subject: [VHFcontesting] 6M only category
> 
> 
> Tor - One can enter 6M only in the CQ WW VHF contest. Lots of guys do it. It 
> is one of the reasons the contest is so popular. The only real drawback to 
> this is that Es is on the downswing when the contest is held in the middle 
> to end of July. If the contest were held earlier, say the weekend between 
> the VHF contest and Field Day, or even the first weekend in July, I think it 
> would give the ARRL contest a good run for its money.
> 
> Having said this, I think that if you had a 6M only category in a general 
> ARRL VHF/UHF contest it would reduce the activity on the higher bands. I 
> disagree with you on this item. That is OK. Dialog is good in these things. 
> I think that the reduction in microwave activity that has resulted from the 
> introduction of the limited multi-op category and the migration of Classic 
> Rovers to the Limited Rover category is proof of this.
> 
> If the HF contesters who migrate to 6M want more contest activity than 6M 
> offers, they can get on 144 MHz or 432 MHz and work stations up there. 
> Granted there aren’t as many, and the rates are slow but it is not that hard 
> to get on those bands these days and there are often VHF+ operators who are 
> willing to loan rigs to new VHF ops. As a rover, I often pass out grids to 
> those 6M ops that they would not otherwise get. It would be nice if they 
> could get on the higher bands and give me a few more QSOes in return. But 
> when I suggest it they say no one is on those bands so it isn’t worth 
> getting on. That, of course is a self fulfilling prophecy. When I remind 
> them that I am on, they say, well you are the only one, but then I say Bill 
> is out there roving too, and there are a few other well equipped 2M stations 
> around, and they kind of go ummmm. I suspect the truth is that when the 
> propagation dies on 6M, the rates also drop, and most HF contesters come 
> from a culture where rates are everything. At VHF rates are usually low and 
> DX contacts can take 10 minutes instead of 20 seconds at HF. That is OK, but 
> we need to realize that VHF contesting is not for everyone, and if making it 
> more appealing to HF contesters reduces current VHF activity, then the price 
> of attracting new ops to VHF contesting is too high.
> 
> I don’t think that 6M activity is the problem in declining VHF+ contesting 
> activity.
> 
> If you have not done so, please make your opinions known to the Ad Hoc 
> Committee. - Duffey, KK6MC
> 
> 
> On Jan 5, 2015, at 4:53 PM, vhfcontesting-request@contesting.com wrote:
> 
> > I think the biggest source of new VHF contesters are active HF contesters.
> > Most now have 6M but none of the other bands. The one thing that would get
> > more HF-types on VHF would be a 6M single band category. Looking through 
> > the
> > June VHF contest results you will find a number of HF contester calls who
> > made a few contacts on 6M (also check 3830 since many of these guys don't
> > bother to submit a log). If there was a 6M category some of these stations
> > would be enticed to operate the whole contest on 6M because they would
> > actually have a category they could compete in. And after a few years,
> > some of these guys would get interested in the higher bands and try
> > the all-band categories. I don't buy the argument that this would
> > decrease higher band activity- more stations on in the contest is good, 
> > period.
> 
> 
> 
> --
> KK6MC
> James Duffey
> Cedar Crest NM
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
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