[SECC] consider this

[Kevan Nason]

Rick wrote:  "This is the most discussion on this reflector in the past 6
months.." That is why I rarely post here any more. Not much had been
happening. I was asked to help get another group going so moved on, but
still keep ties here in the hopes things will pick up again. (I did
recently realize I haven't contributed a score to the SECC in quite awhile.
Sorry. I plan on playing in the IARU and will give credit here.)

I don't recall anyone in those contentious earlier posts telling those who
like to use FT4/8 in a contest not to do so. What I heard was personal
opinions and personal choices being expressed. As to what appears to be
anger by Rick attacking others, I think his reply about him and Jeff being
friends is spot on. There are many Type A personalities in the world of
Competitive Contesting. It isn't surprising clashes occur. Rick and I have
had significant disagreements too, yet I consider him a friend. We're a
couple hundred miles apart and I'm in the middle of nowhere South Carolina
so our paths aren't likely to cross soon, but I would love to sit down over
another mexican dinner or BBQ lunch with him sometime. Rick puts out a good
breakfast too. This stuff about FT4/8 isn't a political discussion where
choices affect someone's livelihood or, potentially, their life. These
posts are opinions over whether an operating mode used in the hobby of ham
radio is really contesting or not. Jeez. Get upset about people having
strong opinions about that? As Riley Hollingsworth said in his speech many
years ago... "Lighten Up." Or as Rick says, hit delete. Or... defend your
opinion about how good it is and that it really should be adopted by old
school contesters.

I've never operated FT4/8, but I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express once.
Er, make that last part I have attended several ham meetings where it has
been demonstrated and discussed. And I've read a few posts about problems
people had while using it to contest. I can't quite see many special skills
needed by an operator that can significantly affect contest scores. One
thing that bothers me about those who push FT4/8 is I've never seen a good
answer to that. The only thing I've picked up on is how tuning slightly off
frequency can set you apart from the crowd. So... why doesn't someone in
the FT4/8 contest crowd defend its use just as Rick, Jeff, Hal and others,
including me, say it isn't suited for contesting? What's so great about
it?  Yeah, you can sit there and operate at your rig if you want, but I've
also heard a guy talk about how great it was when he worked a DXpedition.
He said he told the computer to work that station, went upstairs and
watched some football, then came back at a break in the action and found he
had "worked" them. Where is the operator skill needed in that? I can't
understand why people are proud about doing that. That type of operating
doesn't involve skills like -- you can get better scores if you can copy CW
reliably at 35 WPM than someone who only does 25. No tips to help you like
-- when S&P you can turn the VFO knob a bit to change your frequency while
transmitting and make yourself stand out from the crowd a bit. Just don't
go too far and tune out of their filter passband. No tips like -- to help
that EU station that is having trouble copying your SSB phonetics of "Romeo
Lima" try "Roma London" instead. There are a hundred tips like that in the
"traditional" modes which involve split second real time decisions by an
operator. How do you program those type things into FT4/8 operation? And if
you could program a computer to do it, why bother?

Go ahead and defend FT4/8. Get a discussion going. Maybe you'll change some
minds the way my mind was changed about how "good" assisted operation
involves much more than point-and-clicking on a spot. I think my head is
still sore from Jim, VE7ZO, beating me up for trusting the accuracy of
spots! (Thanks again for that opportunity to be beaten up, Rick.)

Being an idealist I also like the idea that being a good CW, SSB, or RTTY
contesting op has practical applications in the realm of emergency
communications. That's been proven many times. The most recent I'm aware of
is when a contester ran message traffic into Puerto Rico after the
hurricanes hit. What possible good would FT4/8 be there?  Maybe a
standardized message structure like the ARRL uses for its message traffic
might help. But that means limited flexibility in message content. And with
such few characters being sent in those modes and having such a low data
throughput rate I can't figure how being a "skilled" FT4/8 contester would
do any good in EMCOMM. So... Limited skill set. Computer to Computer q's
with limited to no operator input needed. Little value to anything other
than its own specialized mode of FT4/8 communications. Why include it in
the contest world?

Kevan N4XL
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