I will agree that E-Skip is regional. Sometime you get favored, sometimes you
don't. However the 15M prop on IARU was not E-Skip that I could tell.
You can't measure prop by "whose on?". If there is prop to the Pacific or
Southeast Asia - which there often is in W5 (I used to live in Texas), and no
one is on from there - it sounds like zero prop - but its actually zero
activity to an open zone of the world.
I have no issue with FT8. Nor do I have dog in the fight of VHF contests. I
like to see data be accurate in our discussions though.
Ed N1UR
-----Original Message-----
From: egruff@cox.net [mailto:egruff@cox.net]
Sent: Thursday, July 25, 2019 1:59 PM
To: Edward Sawyer; CQ-Contest@contesting.com
Subject: RE: [CQ-Contest] Possible changes for CQ VHF Contest
Ed,
Actually, propagation is not the same across the US. I've operated in the CQ
WPX CW, IARU HF, CQ VHF and NAQP RTTY contests in the past two months. For the
HF contests, 10 M was not open at all here and 15 M was only open very slightly
during two of the three contests. I operated SO2R on 20 and 15 during all
daylight hours with an SDR so I didn't miss signals on the S&P bands, and made
fewer than 20 QSOs on 15 in each contest using 1500 W and a 3-element yagi at
65'. From the 3830 scores reported, most of the Eastern half of the country had
dozens, if not hundreds, of QSOs on 15 and 10 M.
There was a huge opening on 10 M on the East Coast at the end of the CQ WPX CW.
NR4M even commented in 3830 how it helped their final score tremendously. I was
on the 2nd Place Team (raw score only so far) and we were less than 800k points
behind them with four hours to go. By the end, they had almost 2.7 M points
more than we did (18.5M vs 15.9 M).
Sporadic-E is hugely different between the two halves of the country separated
by the Rockies. On most days, looking at DXmaps.com, you'll see a mass of lines
representing 6 and 10 Meters across the Eastern US and often more heading over
to Europe. We typically have days at a time where there is no Es here. The
reasons are fairly clear and are based on vertical wind shear and the jet
stream.
It is what it is, as I always heard when living in NY. Everyone has a different
situation and we can't change propagation (or move, in most cases). I was just
trying to explain why many of us use the weak signal modes like FT8 so much.
Since there have been a lot of "only newbies who don't know better use
FT8"-type comments, I'll point out that I and many of the other WC posters have
been hams for decades (42+ years in my case) and are adept at CW (35+ wpm here
and occasionally win the section in CW-only
contests) and SSB. The problem is that I can't work stations I can't hear.
FT8 buys me at least 10 dB, if not more. And before everyone jumps on the "get
a better antenna" bandwagon, many of us have towers and large yagis, myself
included.
I didn't mean for this to become a hate-fest. I just am dismayed that so many
people feel the need to disparage FT8 and JT65, and those of us that use it
frequently. It's part of ham radio, like it or not, and it isn't going
anywhere. The sheer popularity alone means contest organizers and awards
committees are going to accept it lest they lose participation. Most folks
can't/won't switch to CW or SSB because FT8 is not included in a contest -
they'll just not participate.
73 de NC6K
-----Original Message-----
From: CQ-Contest <cq-contest-bounces@contesting.com> On Behalf Of Edward Sawyer
Sent: Thursday, July 25, 2019 3:07 AM
To: CQ-Contest@contesting.com
Subject: Re: [CQ-Contest] Possible changes for CQ VHF Contest
Actually, the propagation is the same on the West Coast as it is on the East
Coast. The issue is the lack of DX participation in Japan, China, India,
Australia, Indonesia, etc that rivals Europe. If there was even half the
participation in said region as there is in Europe, we wouldn't be having this
conversation on East vs West Coast all the time.
Ed N1UR
-----Original Message-----
From: CQ-Contest [mailto:cq-contest-bounces@contesting.com] On Behalf Of
egruff@cox.net
Sent: Wednesday, July 24, 2019 6:01 PM
To: CQ-Contest@contesting.com
Subject: Re: [CQ-Contest] Possible changes for CQ VHF Contest
All,
I feel like I am fighting the same battle on alternate fronts here. It's either
"FT8 isn't real radio and shouldn't be allowed" or "No one needs to run 1500 W
to work DX". The common thread is that the originators of these messages are
almost exclusively hams on the East Coast (where I grew up and operated for the
first 13 years or so as a ham, so I have no inherent bias against you guys, I
promise).
You have to understand that propagation from the western half of the US is
NOTHING like it is where you live. On some bands, we haven't heard Europe in a
year or more. This includes 12, 10 and 6 Meters. On 160 M, it takes a kW+ to
work Europe most nights, and FT8/JT65 are often the only modes that are
sensitive enough to pick them up. I have frequently reviewed my logs for 160,
80, 10 and 6 Meters, and more than half the contacts I've made in the past
three years (nadir of Solar Cycle 24) were with stations that were weaker than
-15 dB on digital modes. This is the commonly-accepted threshold for being able
to hear CW. So, without the weak-signal modes, I wouldn't have made the
contacts. It's great that you all are 2000 miles or less from most of Europe,
but remember that we are at least 5000 miles from the continent. I'm not going
to give up the chance to work new countries because "it's not CW or SSB", and I
suspect none of you would either.
For contests, a very similar situation exists. I am a semiserious contester and
prefer CW to all other modes. However, for multimode contests, I can't hear,
much less work many of the stations that you all work easily. While
FT8 is painfully slow compared to CW or SSB, at some point I can pick up many
more QSOs and some multipliers at the cost of a much lower rate with FT8.
Again, why shouldn't I take advantage of the opportunity instead of turning off
the radio? This weekend's CQ WW VHF contest was a great example.
In 4 hours that I had to operate, I made 15 CW and 5 or so SSB QSOs, all in TX
and FL. I was able to make 40 FT8 QSOs within the same window, many of which
were new grids in the contest. Looking at my log, fully 75% of them were below
the -15 dB threshold for CW. I bet that most of you East Coasters were able to
make more QSOs in one hour than I did in 4 and probably had twice as many
multipliers.
I'd love to impose a rule that before anyone can bitch about FT8, they should
have to run a contest from the West Coast. If you can get within 25% of your
score in the same contest from a prior year at your home QTH, I'll take out a
full-page ad in the newpaper of your choice to trumpet your opinion. You guys
just don't know how much better it is there. There is a reason why there are
fewer than two dozen 6 M DXCC awards earned by West Coast stations since the
award started. Some of us have multiple towers, big yagis or stacks and run
full QRO. You can argue how we do so much better to Japan, and that's true, but
it's ONE country. We also occasionally can work China, Taiwan, S Korea and
VK/ZL, but that's about it and they are 6000+ miles away. Certainly not the
number of entities that are within 2000 miles of you guys.
So, the next time you want to complain about why anyone would want to use FT8,
consider that we're all not as fortunate as you. It's far worse for our fellow
hams in KH6 and KL7. It's a great weak-signal mode that has a place in radio.
I'll never give up CW (phone is another story), but I have no intention of
quitting FT8 either and neither do many of my friends on this side of the
country. All we're asking is that you show a little consideration for others
that are in less favorable QTHs.
73,
Eric NC6K
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