[CQ-Contest] FT4 - Robotic Contesting

[Jim Brown]

On 4/30/2019 10:03 AM, rjairam at gmail.com wrote:
> I’ve used FT8 in VHF contesting and it’s a mixed bag. I doubt that it will
> take the place of SSB or CW.

I'm primarily a CW op, and have been for 55 years. I'm also quite active 
in the grid chase on 6M, and until two years ago, found CW best by far 
for picking up multi-hop E-skip. I picked up 80 new grids last season, 
all but a few using FT8. A handful used MSK144 (meteor scatter). I made 
no CW or SSB contacts on 6M last season, and very few the season before.

FT8 has been a game-changer for grid-chasing on 6M and DXing on 160M. 
Two reasons: 1) ops who don't know CW can activate a grid with a mode 
that can work 6-10 dB deeper into the noise than CW with great ops on 
both ends, and 20 dB better than SSB; 2) the mode concentrates all 
activity into a 2.5kHz window with a multi-decoder. No need for 
waterfall displays or constantly tuning the band.

Before JT65 and FT8, it took me eight years to work four JAs on 6M CW. 
This season I worked more than 60 JA in 23 grids, plus JT and DU.

In the four years prior to the 160M season just finished, I heard no EU 
at all. This season I worked one of the four CW stations I heard. Using 
FT8, I worked more than 20 EU stations, 11 of them new countries.

Things may be different east of W9, but that's life from W6.

That said, I have no interest in WSJT modes for HF contesting.

AD6E put it quite well on the NCCC reflector, saying that he loves 
contesting both for the station-building and the operating. I feel the 
same way, and have the greatest respect for those contesters, like NCCC 
members K6XX, W2SC, and N6KT, who do both.

73, Jim K9YC