[RSM] K0JP June VHF Contest (aka Digifest)

[Jack K0JP]

If this is the future of VHF contesting then I am done.

Huge FT8 activity on Saturday which diminished considerably on Sunday. 
Saturday I saw many stations with signal levels in excess of +10db which 
prompted me to look at CW and SSB. I was, sadly, almost always disappointed.

On 6-meters I made a total of one CW QSO and three SSB QSOs. The CW Q, 
on Saturday, was W5VX/EM12 who was an honest 589 when he answered my CQ. 
At the same time I was copying the W5GPU beacon (EM16) at an S4 signal 
level. There were NO OTHER CW stations heard, which frustrated me 
because the W5VX QSO took all of 10 second to complete.

The SSB QSOs were also early on Saturday with N5ENU/EM12, an easily 
workable S8, and K5ZG/DM88 who was a bit tougher at S3 and took a couple 
of repeats. At that time NO OTHER SSB signals were heard in spite of 
many FT8 signals +05db or better. Later I was hearing N2NT on SSB and 
W1XX on CW but they were weak and no QSOs resulted.

I spent a total of 2 hours calling CQ on 6 CW with a single QSO 
resulting. I also spent about a half hour calling CQ on 2 CW but worked 
no one, although after seeing comments about poor conditions I am now 
not surprised.

I made 14 FT8 QSOs but simply became bored and quickly went to do 
something (anything) else. I have no interest in sitting clicking the 
mouse to select the next station to be worked and watch it happen 
automatically. That falls into the same category as watching paint dry. 
I did work K0YL/EN17 and VE4VT/EN19 on FT8. Nancy's signals got good 
enough (+03 to +05db) where I could have worked her on CW or SSB easily. 
Ed's FT8 signals never exceeded -05db but would have been workable on CW.

Out of curiosity, since VE4VT was decoded here so often, I did a 
comparison of FT8 signal levels and levels of the same signal in a 250Hz 
CW bandwidth. I found a -13db FT8 signal was about 219...tough but 
workable with effort. A -06db FT8 signal was about a 549 signal on CW! 
This surely tells me how many opportunities for contest QSOs were thrown 
away with this fixation on FT8. I hope other VHF contest ops come to 
this realization and act on it in future events. I guess I should have 
set up the station for Shelley to work the DRCG RTTY contest.

>                      ARRL June VHF Contest - 2021
>
> Call: K0JP
> Operator(s): K0JP
> Station: K0JP
>
> Class: SO 3Band LP
> QTH: EN18
> Operating Time (hrs): 4
>
> Summary:
>   Band  QSOs  Mults
> -------------------
>      6:  18     15
>      2:   1      1
>    222:
>    432:   1      1
>    903:
>    1.2:
>    2.3:
>    3.4:
>    5.7:
>    10G:
>    24G:
> -------------------
> Total:  20     17  Total Score = 357
>
> Club: Minnesota Wireless Assn


-- 
73,

Jack, K0JP/VE3RUA
Shelley, K0MKL



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