[CQ-Contest] Possible changes for CQ VHF Contest

Thu Jul 25 14:12:19 EDT 2019

I will agree that E-Skip is regional.  Sometime you get favored, sometimes you don't.  However the 15M prop on IARU was not E-Skip that I could tell.

You can't measure prop by "whose on?".  If there is prop to the Pacific or Southeast Asia - which there often is in W5 (I used to live in Texas), and no one is on from there - it sounds like zero prop - but its actually zero activity to an open zone of the world.

I have no issue with FT8.  Nor do I have dog in the fight of VHF contests.  I like to see data be accurate in our discussions though.

Ed  N1UR

-----Original Message-----
From: egruff at cox.net [mailto:egruff at cox.net] 
Sent: Thursday, July 25, 2019 1:59 PM
To: Edward Sawyer; CQ-Contest at contesting.com
Subject: RE: [CQ-Contest] Possible changes for CQ VHF Contest

Ed,

Actually, propagation is not the same across the US. I've operated in the CQ WPX CW, IARU HF, CQ VHF and NAQP RTTY contests in the past two months. For the HF contests, 10 M was not open at all here and 15 M was only open very slightly during two of the three contests. I operated SO2R on 20 and 15 during all daylight hours with an SDR so I didn't miss signals on the S&P bands, and made fewer than 20 QSOs on 15 in each contest using 1500 W and a 3-element yagi at 65'. From the 3830 scores reported, most of the Eastern half of the country had dozens, if not hundreds, of QSOs on 15 and 10 M.
There was a huge opening on 10 M on the East Coast at the end of the CQ WPX CW. NR4M even commented in 3830 how it helped their final score tremendously. I was on the 2nd Place Team (raw score only so far) and we were less than 800k points behind them with four hours to go. By the end, they had almost 2.7 M points more than we did (18.5M vs 15.9 M). 

Sporadic-E is hugely different between the two halves of the country separated by the Rockies. On most days, looking at DXmaps.com, you'll see a mass of lines representing 6 and 10 Meters across the Eastern US and often more heading over to Europe. We typically have days at a time where there is no Es here. The reasons are fairly clear and are based on vertical wind shear and the jet stream.

It is what it is, as I always heard when living in NY. Everyone has a different situation and we can't change propagation (or move, in most cases). I was just trying to explain why many of us use the weak signal modes like FT8 so much. Since there have been a lot of "only newbies who don't know better use FT8"-type comments, I'll point out that I and many of the other WC posters have been hams for decades (42+ years in my case) and are adept at CW (35+ wpm here and occasionally win the section in CW-only
contests) and SSB. The problem is that I can't work stations I can't hear.
FT8 buys me at least 10 dB, if not more. And before everyone jumps on the "get a better antenna" bandwagon, many of us have towers and large yagis, myself included.

I didn't mean for this to become a hate-fest. I just am dismayed that so many people feel the need to disparage FT8 and JT65, and those of us that use it frequently. It's part of ham radio, like it or not, and it isn't going anywhere. The sheer popularity alone means contest organizers and awards committees are going to accept it lest they lose participation. Most folks can't/won't switch to CW or SSB because FT8 is not included in a contest - they'll just not participate.

73 de NC6K

-----Original Message-----
From: CQ-Contest <cq-contest-bounces at contesting.com> On Behalf Of Edward Sawyer
Sent: Thursday, July 25, 2019 3:07 AM
To: CQ-Contest at contesting.com
Subject: Re: [CQ-Contest] Possible changes for CQ VHF Contest

Actually, the propagation is the same on the West Coast as it is on the East Coast.  The issue is the lack of DX participation in Japan, China, India, Australia, Indonesia, etc that rivals Europe.  If there was even half the participation in said region as there is in Europe, we wouldn't be having this conversation on East vs West Coast all the time.

Ed  N1UR

-----Original Message-----
From: CQ-Contest [mailto:cq-contest-bounces at contesting.com] On Behalf Of egruff at cox.net
Sent: Wednesday, July 24, 2019 6:01 PM
To: CQ-Contest at contesting.com
Subject: Re: [CQ-Contest] Possible changes for CQ VHF Contest

All,

I feel like I am fighting the same battle on alternate fronts here. It's either "FT8 isn't real radio and shouldn't be allowed" or "No one needs to run 1500 W to work DX". The common thread is that the originators of these messages are almost exclusively hams on the East Coast (where I grew up and operated for the first 13 years or so as a ham, so I have no inherent bias against you guys, I promise).

You have to understand that propagation from the western half of the US is NOTHING like it is where you live. On some bands, we haven't heard Europe in a year or more. This includes 12, 10 and 6 Meters. On 160 M, it takes a kW+ to work Europe most nights, and FT8/JT65 are often the only modes that are sensitive enough to pick them up. I have frequently reviewed my logs for 160, 80, 10 and 6 Meters, and more than half the contacts I've made in the past three years (nadir of Solar Cycle 24) were with stations that were weaker than -15 dB on digital modes. This is the commonly-accepted threshold for being able to hear CW. So, without the weak-signal modes, I wouldn't have made the contacts. It's great that you all are 2000 miles or less from most of Europe, but remember that we are at least 5000 miles from the continent. I'm not going to give up the chance to work new countries because "it's not CW or SSB", and I suspect none of you would either.

For contests, a very similar situation exists. I am a semiserious contester and prefer CW to all other modes. However, for multimode contests, I can't hear, much less work many of the stations that you all work easily. While
FT8 is painfully slow compared to CW or SSB, at some point I can pick up many more QSOs and some multipliers at the cost of a much lower rate with FT8. Again, why shouldn't I take advantage of the opportunity instead of turning off the radio? This weekend's CQ WW VHF contest was a great example.
In 4 hours that I had to operate, I made 15 CW and 5 or so SSB QSOs, all in TX and FL. I was able to make 40 FT8 QSOs within the same window, many of which were new grids in the contest. Looking at my log, fully 75% of them were below the -15 dB threshold for CW. I bet that most of you East Coasters were able to make more QSOs in one hour than I did in 4 and probably had twice as many multipliers.

I'd love to impose a rule that before anyone can bitch about FT8, they should have to run a contest from the West Coast. If you can get within 25% of your score in the same contest from a prior year at your home QTH, I'll take out a full-page ad in the newpaper of your choice to trumpet your opinion. You guys just don't know how much better it is there. There is a reason why there are fewer than two dozen 6 M DXCC awards earned by West Coast stations since the award started. Some of us have multiple towers, big yagis or stacks and run full QRO. You can argue how we do so much better to Japan, and that's true, but it's ONE country. We also occasionally can work China, Taiwan, S Korea and VK/ZL, but that's about it and they are 6000+ miles away. Certainly not the number of entities that are within 2000 miles of you guys.

So, the next time you want to complain about why anyone would want to use FT8, consider that we're all not as fortunate as you. It's far worse for our fellow hams in KH6 and KL7. It's a great weak-signal mode that has a place in radio. I'll never give up CW (phone is another story), but I have no intention of quitting FT8 either and neither do many of my friends on this side of the country. All we're asking is that you show a little consideration for others that are in less favorable QTHs.

73,

Eric NC6K

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