Over the years I’ve found the UHF contest to be an enjoyable part of the August
scene
when not busy with family here.
In addition many others up here in Canada have participated with enthusiasm and
great scores over the years & everyone always looks forward to it.
In fact it’s been an incentive to get my suburban size lot, 432 and up station
spruced up, as I know others
around here have as well particularly on 2304 and 222.
I was looking forward to more this year, with high power on 902 and 1296!
So now this leaves June as the only opportunity, and that means of course
running the bands,
but also being spread across many bands…just not the same!
It’s unfortunate that ARRL chose the outright cancel the test for 2016 rather
than
running it and then instituting changes for 2017.
BUT
What changes?
- distance and/or power as part of scoring?
- incentives for FM and digital?
- promoting hilltop operating vs roving?
- make a cumulative 222 and up UHF contest all summer long?
- promote activity night based cumulative contest all summer long?
If ARRL wants to get more people involved, you need to get more people
interested
in UHF and up DXing and technology rather than simply promoting FM and
handhelds, which
we all know is a huge impediment to experimenting, both in the US and Canada -
add to this that the major manufacturers still DO NOT include multimode
handhelds or mobile rigs across the board,
something that is easily implemented today - but for having to provide linear
PA’s and extra
detection/processing, but could this not be done? I’d sooner have that than a
radio that “talks” for $35.
Just think what you could do if you had an 8 w handheld that ran
SSB/FM/AM/CW/Digital?
SDR’s offer a major opportunity for multimode operations, just look at the
HackRF for example
while not quite ready for prime time, it shows a pathway to the future….again
think of a small box that
runs 8 w all modes DC - 6 GHz...
Well I’ll miss the contest this year, but hopefully we will see it rise again
next year.
73 Dana VE3DS/VE3DSS
50 -1296
FN03FQ
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