Good and valid points by yourself and W9RM, but....
Low activity is low activity and even worse when low activity is low local
actviity. No mode will cure the shear lack of stations active on the air during
a contest.
W9RM's (I think it was) previous post about 432 ops benifiting from going CW
over SSB has some validity to it at times. I don't recall hearing maybe more
than one guy doing CW last night. Thus I might of missed out on 1 QSO, which
really wouldn't mean diddly squat in the big picture....for me at least. Most
of the time when I hear someone on CW and can call on SSB and still work them
anyways. A lot of the guys have automatic cw keyers, but not voice
keyers...that's my guess at least.
But if we're really going to go after those last few dB of SNR on QSO's and
push our range to the max, yeap I agree a digital mode (which one for us to
standardize upon?) is probably even better than CW.
I use a laptop for logging anyways, so that's not an issue. I used my last rig
interface box for an echolink setup, so I'd have to come up with another one.
That said, I'm open to the idea of us embracing one of the really good digital
modes IF....we'll pick one to standardize upon for contesting.
Is JT65 the best for V/U contesting? Or is this just inviting a big long heated
debate over which mode is the best?
All that said, let's be realistic about what another mode can do in regards to
the problem of low activity levels (especially local activity levels, stations
that are workable on any mode).
My 2 cents worth...
73
Jeff
WA4ZKO
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