[SECC] Correction - FTx and contesting

[Kevan Nason]

Oops. Ed, K3DNE, said the comments below were wrongly attributed. They
actually came from a fellow SECC member, Robert AJ5E. Robert also sent me
an email asking if I had seen his previous comments -- which for some
reason I do not have. Sorry Robert. However, the comments are exactly what
I was looking for so I'm glad to have received them.

Kevan N4XL
---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: Kevan Nason <knason00 at gmail.com>
Date: Tue, Jun 16, 2020 at 10:00 AM
Subject: FTx and contesting
To: secc <secc at contesting.com>


Very long…



I had asked what contest skills are needed for FTx contesting. Wasn't happy
with the answers here (sorry Scott) so I posed the hypothetical FTx WRTC
question to the Swamp Fox Contest Group. Received answers from two good
ops. With their permission I pulled out some things to share with the SECC.
If there are any amplifying comments or questions from the SECC I will feed
them back to the SFCG group.



For credentials, Matt, DJ8OG, is over here from Germany at BMW in SC. He is
also licensed here as NU4E. We all know there are some great German
operators. Matt was #6 in Germany in the 2018 WRTC standings. (He kicks my
butt, or holds his own, here in SC even though I’ve a better station than
him.) Ed, K3DNE, moved down here last year. He has been associated for a
long time with the PVRC and has been an op at WX3B several times. He had a
very respectable 1.9 meg score in the SSB WPX a couple weeks back using a
minimal antenna setup. He has been into what I’ve come to call Competitive
Contesting for quite a while and knows what he’s talking about. Matt deals
with aspects that apply to contesting in general that also apply to FTx.
Ed’s comments are more FTx specific.


At least for me, their answers encourage me to give FTx contests a try.


Kevan N4XL


===============================

Matt NU4E, DJ8OG

I think you have to be aware of the right band conditions, is the band open
in a certain direction? Am I making enough contacts, DX, domestic, mults?
If not, why? Maybe because someone is using my TX frequency and is covering
me, I could hear / see him and act fast (happened to us during the weekend)
to look for a clean spot (no arguing in FT8) to continue calling CQ or I
could not see him but another station maybe is still transmitting on my
frequency in my targeting area. If I think I have a clean QRG to call and
in EU there is someone using the same and maybe covering me? You always
have to adjust your strategy. You need mults on different bands to boost
your score, which areas are open at which times, be there and eventually
you get mults your biggest opponent is not making. My elmer once told me to
leave a nice 20m SSB run to the US to go down to 40m and call to Asia in my
afternoon. I thought he´s crazy but he said you´ll get those mults, they´ll
call you and before everyone else is fighting for it in the evening. You
can still run USA and don´t need to battle later. So band knowledge is
required, no matter what. Even when you´re assisted and have all the tools,
doing the right decision at the right time will boost your score. I could
proof it back home with my station I beat a M/S station a few miles away
from my QTH. They use monoband antennas on all bands, we had the same
amplifier and I could beat them because I made other choices which boost my
score. Running DX over EU, leaving a run and do important mults. Work with
the 2nd VFO to not lose your run QRG but still get those inband mults. Know
when it´s not worth to call a station and move on, don´t rely on those
things N1MM+ is telling you, at the end you are responsible for your action
and you don´t want to blame the software to be the first on 2nd place :-)




Ed, K3DNE

Good response from Matt, too:  General operating skills - making good
*strategic* decisions about when to run, when to chase mults, when to
change bands, etc etc, will almost always take the prize.



FT8 actually has a significant technical skill set.  Let me illustrate by
describing two hypothetical operators:



*A novice or non-technical operator:*

·         Fires up the software, picks a band and clicks the shiny *CALL CQ*
 button.

·         Sips coffee, reads the paper

·         Some minutes later, the *LOG THIS CONTACT* window magically pops
up.

·         If boredom sets in, instead of CQ they will look for a "green
line" in the Activity window and double-click it.

·         Back to the newspaper.

·         Some minutes later, the *LOG THIS CONTACT* window magically pops
up and he's got another QSO!  Awesome!!

·         Rinse and repeat

A novice FT8 op is *thinking and making decisions every few minutes*.  The
novice operator will lose lots of Qs because they spent five minutes on a
hopelessly weak station, or they didn't notice the handshake broke, or the
other op started working a different station, or they sent "RR73" but the
other station didn't hear it, or any number of things that can derail the
FT8 conversation.  They weren't ready to react to anything other than " *Hey
look, it worked!*"



*A crazy-skilled operator:*

·         Watches the waterfall and activity window for all the activity --
who is talking to whom, who is weak, who is strong, QSB, etc.

·         Looks for a clear spot to Tx, but changes it regularly.

·         Always works split.  *Always.*  Okay, *ALMOST* always.

·         Able to QSY (multiple times in a single QSO) to get around QRM.

·         Will switch from "odd" to "even" to get an overpowering signal
off the waterfall.

·         Will turn the VFO to nudge a station at the edge of the audio
freq limits into the wheelhouse.

·         Ready to respond immediately when FT8 goes sideways.

·         etc.

The crazy-skilled FT8 op is *thinking and making decisions constantly*.
The coffee is cold, and the newspaper is still in the driveway soaking
wet.  By staying actively engaged in what's going on, the FT8-savvy op will
be able to sustain a higher Q rate, whereas the novice op Q rate will
plummet in anything short of ideal conditions.



(All this is just my opinion, of course.  Your mileage may vary.)
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.contesting.com/pipermail/secc/attachments/20200616/b568a9c3/attachment-0001.html>