Hello Keith and everyone interested in VHF contesting......The CQ WW VHF
rules are absolutely wonderful. The CQ contest is far and away the best
VHF contest that we have. I know that the HF types go apopletic when
someone mentions "self spotting", but in the VHF world it is perfectly
acceptable(except to a few old curmudgeons). The CQ rules allow self
spotting with two very important restrictions: 1)You can spot yourself
ONLY if you are doing digital EME or digital meteor scatter and 2)When
you spot yourself, you can spot Call, Frequency, and Sequence ONLY. This
is very important. If I spot K5QE 144.142 Second when I am running
digital EME, then I have ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA who might call me. When I
get a good decode, then and only then, will I know who is calling. This
feature insures that all the contact information is passed over the
radio path....thus insuring a valid contact.
The idea of posting Call, Frequency, and Sequence ONLY was called
Structured Assistance and was the brain child of a well known WA
VHFer(and most probably others too). It was not my idea, but I fully
support this method. Jay: Thank you for your support as well. The
attempt to get this method into the ARRL contests was blocked by a
single well-known member of the ARRL's VUAC. I can self post in the CQ
contest and suddenly I will get 2-3 new callers. After I work them and
call CQ a couple of times, I will post my Call, Frequency, and Sequence
again.....and 2-3 new callers will appear.
There is a special value to Structured Assistance for meteor scatter. I
can post CQ K5QE 50.265MHz First Sequence and have people call me
directly on .265. I don't have to sit on 50.260MHz, the calling
frequency, and send CQ K5QE 265 while I await a call on 50.265MHz. This
means that having several stations call on the calling frequency and
referencing offset frequencies all over the place is now eliminated.
Sometimes 50.260MHz can get cluttered with several stations trying to
actually make contacts somewhere else.
The CQ rules allow EVERYONE to look at the Internet reflectors, not just
Multi-Multi stations. This too, is very important. I have posted in
the past that the ARRL rules strongly discriminate against the single op
stations. For some reason, the rules don't allow single ops to do
ANYTHING. One wonders why they bother, considering all the restrictions
that they labor under. One old curmudgeon in the NE wrote me and said,
"Single ops are not SUPPOSED to be able to do any of those things". I
almost fell off my chair. From whence do the Antis come up with this
stuff?????
If everyone keeps working to implement rules similar to the CQ rules,
maybe they will someday be implemented. I suspect that the old
curmudgeons will have to die off first....I am not holding my breath....
See you in the CQ WW VHF contest in July......At least there are a
decent set of rules working there.....
73 Marshall K5QE
P.S. As usual, thoughtful emails will be read, considered, and
answered. Flames go directly to the bit bucket(the will not pass GO and
will certainly not get $200).
On 1/22/2013 6:24 PM, Keith Morehouse wrote:
Multi-op stations can use the internet as long as they don't solicit
QSO's. That's the category most ops who use spotting assistance in VHF
tests enter.
HF contests have a "ASSISTED" category for single ops, which means they can
monitor spotting nets, ect, but still CAN NOT actively solicit QSO's.
CQWW VHF now has a rule that allows ops to make basic announcements about
where they are calling CQ, ect. Personally, I think the ARRL should
consider adding this rule to their VHF test.
Jay W9RM
Keith J Morehouse
Managing Partner
Calmesa Partners G.P.
Montrose, CO
On Tue, Jan 22, 2013 at 6:16 PM, Gregg Seidl <k9kl@centurytel.net> wrote:
I don't understand why there isn't a catagory with internet assistance in
the VHF/UHF contests. There should be,most HF tests have them now.
I know this is another stry but I really don't get why the EME contest
doesn't allow it either.
Shouldn't the goal of any contest be to have hams make as many QSO's as
possible and then group the stations in similiar catagories to make it as
fair as possible to detewrmine a winner?
If a ham doesn't want to use internet asistance then don't and only
compete against stations who don't want the internet either.
Gregg K9KL
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