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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