Hi Mike!
First off, I WANT more HF contesters to get into VHF+. A lot of HF
contesters love running stations and the adrenalin rush that goes with it.
They get on VHF and, except for rare openings on 6 meters, quickly get
bored with the few QSO's per hour and give it up. I've personally seen
and heard many HF contesters say this. A few get bitten by the VHF bug
and stay with it. I welcome them!
Secondly, I'm just not into making QSO's by any other means than (a) skeds
arranged before the contest, or (b) what I can hear and work during the
contest. The January VHF SS this year brought dismal conditions to my
area. I operated from home with antennas that weren't that high up, with
a broken rotor, and had great difficulty working people, either because
there were fewer around in the contest or because most people did not
point their beams my way. But as Kurt Vonnegut would say, "So it goes",
and I only managed 12 QSO's and a lot of listening to noise - probably
about 8 hours of it.
Microwave QSO's are a blast! To me, there isn't much greater fun than
running the bands up through 10 GHz. I'm working on adding even more
bands.
:-)
73, Zack W9SZ
On Tue, 29 Jan 2008, Michael Tessmer wrote:
> >Anyway you can set it up is fine. It will increase activity!
>
> Being moslty an (unwelcome?) HFer who dabbles in VHF events from time to
> time, I guess I don't quite get it. Joe Casual Op sees something in a
> magazine about a VHF contest so he turns on the radio to check it out. But
> all the VHFers are in the chat rooms or on the phone lining up their QSOs so
> he doesn't hear anyone calling CQ or whatever. Joe C. figures there's not
> much to this VHF stuff and turns off the radio and does other stuff for the
> rest of the weekend. Exactly how does this increase activity?
>
>
>> Let those that want truly "random" contacts without ANY pre-arranged
>> schedules/spotting, etc or running the bands - only call CQ to make a
>> contact (or two) on 2.3, 5.7, 10 GHz (or higher) and see how they do
> without
>> any coordination of time, where to aim/point, frequency, mode, etc - it
>> isn't going happen very often....
>
> Best as I can tell, this discussion has never been about "running the bands"
> with a station once you establish the initial contact. "Running the bands"
> is standard procedure, always has been. The key is you made the initial
> contact via radio - likely on one of the lower bands - and you moved up from
> there after peaking your antennas, etc. You found each other by calling CQ,
> turning your antennas, tuning around the bands, calling more CQs, etc. This
> all worked fine and good 20 years ago. Why doesn't it work anymore today?
>
>
> 73, Mike K9NW
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