[CQ-Contest] FT4 - Robotic Contesting

[John Geiger]

I hope you are right about people realizing that CW and SSB are more
productive on contests. Last year's June VHF contest was an absolute mess.
Almost everyone sat on FT8 with very little on CW and SSB.  The QRM was so
bad on FT8 that it was hard to work anyone.  I think I worked something
like 40 grids in the contest.  In the Pre-FT8 years with the kind of
opening we had I could have easily worked over 100.

I hope we learned from our mistakes, but I am not holding my breath on it.

73 John AF5CC

On Tue, Apr 30, 2019 at 7:22 PM rjairam at gmail.com <rjairam at gmail.com> wrote:

> DXing and grid chasing is different from contesting I would argue.
>
> In my experience most of my contesting experience has been part of a
> rover team. FT8 has changed the dynamic some, but we've found that SSB
> and CW are far more productive for contests for two reasons - one is
> the time to completion, and the other is that you can't ask people to
> QSY on FT8. SSB and CW are still far superior for that.
>
> Maybe it will change it for fixed stations, I suppose.
>
> 73
> Ria, N2RJ
>
> On Tue, 30 Apr 2019 at 19:42, Jim Brown <k9yc at audiosystemsgroup.com>
> wrote:
> >
> > 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
> > _______________________________________________
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>
>
>
> --
> Ria Jairam, N2RJ
> Director, Hudson Division
> ARRL - The national association for Amateur Radio™
> +1.973.594.6275
> https://hudson.arrl.org
> n2rj at arrl.org
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