Topband: A way forward to keep 'old school' modes vibrant alongside FT-8? (long)

[k8bhz at alphacomm.net]

Hi Steve,

Thank you very much for bringing this topic up, and for your summary. 
The elephant in the room needed addressing.

I almost bought the new transceiver I've been wanting this year....until 
I saw the reflector post about the gentleman who "worked 20 new ones 
this season, and I couldn't hear any of them!". Since then I've seen a 
couple of DX entities I need (I'm now at 235) which were operating 
digital only...The new purchase is now on hold, until I see how this 
plays out. If there is a rapid change to digital only DXing on 160, I'm 
going to be happy I saved my money for one of my more interesting 
hobbies. Those digital operators who don't understand why their DX qso's 
shouldn't count the same are purposely overlooking their 10-15 dB 
advantage. Looking at it another way, if the ARRL doesn't create a 
Phone, CW, and Digital classification for their awards and contests, 
then their present "rewards" will be cheapened by 10-15 dB....

I haven't operated QRP, but have great respect for anyone who tackles 
TopBand that way. I, too, have the utmost respect for those DXCC Honor 
Roll members who have spent decades getting there. If their efforts can 
be duplicated easily by anyone having a 10-15 dB advantage, this is 
great technologically, but obviously isn't the same. The ARRL and 
probably CQ need to address this head on.

I've been licensed for over 60 years, and have been a thankful 
participant in ham radio's golden years, but if continuing on means 
having to make qso's that I don't hear and that I can't understand 
without a computer, then it's of no further interest. I was an avid 2 
meter VHFer for decades and managed to work all 50 states in less than a 
year, using every form of propagation available. First meteor scatter 
fell to digital modes, then eme followed, and finally long range tropo. 
I dismantled the big voice from EN75, and went to TopBand to avoid such 
activity. Now it has hit 160....

Like I said, I'll be interested to see how this plays out. If it goes 
all digital, I'm gone. Back to the 5 string banjo, antique (1920's) 
broadcast radios, brook trout fishing (where I don't use stocked trout 
ponds that guarantee fish), bird hunting (and not at those hunt clubs 
that raise birds and release them when you want to shoot), and primitive 
camping. All these are much more entertaining than watching my computer 
"work" DX  when I push a button.

Thanks again Steve, well done...

Brian K8BHZ


On 10/26/2017 9:43 AM, Steve Ireland wrote:
> G’day
>
> Thanks very much to all those who contributed to the thread following my ‘FT8 - the end of 160m old school DXing?’ post. Here is a summary of what appeared in my ‘In Box’.
>
> First, special thanks to CJ Johnson WT2P for bravely giving the ‘new school’ perspective and actually taking radio, in FT-8 form, into his workplace . As CJ says, FT-8 is just another natural progression of the hobby, which actually appeals to the ‘20-somethings’ we need to join us (and who just happened to be brought up with lots of screens rather than cardboard loudspeakers and bakelite headphones). Vive la difference!
>
> In regard to the emails received via the reflector  or privately, there were three things that came through very loud and clear (actually deafening).
>
> 1. There are lots of long-time, old-school topbanders (and 6m users) like me who enjoy chasing weak signal DX on CW and SSB and are now worried about the future of this activity because of the current high usage rates of FT-8 on those bands. Always better when you aren’t alone!
> ---------------------------------------
> 2. We can band together and do something about this - the solution for us old school ops who want to keep CW and SSB vital on the two magic bands is to go back to first principles – lots of CQing, tuning the band regularly and answering CQs – rather than just watching our bandscopes and DX clusters.  We all know that only activity breeds more activity. Duuh! (I feel really stupid now).
>
> As JC N4IS said:
>
> ”With the computer our habits are different. Nowadays we turn [to] the PC first and if we see a spot or a RBN entry we try to call.... We should [go] back to call[ing] CQ for the fun to work someone. Call CQ five times and then turn your computer on, every day. If all of us do it once a day, the band will be fun again.”
>
> We’ve all got CW memory and/or voice keyers – if we don’t want to actually CQ manually, we can use them for lots of daily CQing and make sure we answer anyone who calls us.
>
> We also need to answer those who we hear calling CQ to keep the band alive, even if we worked them the day before – as we did in the older, less hurried, more polite days of yore.
> --------------------------------------------
> 3. The ARRL could be encouraged to change the DXCC program and add a new mode-specific category for the evolving ‘new wave’ (i.e. WSJT) family of digital modes, where contacts can be made with stations that are basically inaudible (i.e. as Hans SM6CVX suggested, where the signal levels are –1dB or more below the noise).
>
> To keep the peace with existing DXCC holders, one potential solution is those traditional modes which generally need audibility – typically CW, SSB, RTTY  and PSK-31 – would count for the long-standing Mixed mode, but the inaudible ‘new wave’ digi modes would not.
>
> However, the growing and evolving family of inaudible ‘new wave’ digital modes could have a whole, bright, shiny new DXCC category to themselves, for which all the current WSJT modes and their evolving, successor modes would count.
>
> This ‘new wave’ digital award could have a new cool, 21st century-looking certificate (are holograms 21st century?) , would give new wave digital operators the chance to be among the first to get this award and would also give the ARRL DXCC program the chance to potentially get some extra revenue in issuing these awards.  Of course, all the contacts would be submitted electronically. ;-)
>
> Another different but related idea came from Mark K3MSB  - why not ask the ARRL to consider awarding band-specific DXCC awards with mode endorsements (i.e. 160M DXCC-CW,  160M DXCC-FT8,  40M-Digital, 17M-SSB etc).
>
> If we want to get this kind of change to the ARRL’s DXCC program, then as Mark suggests we need to make our voices heard. This could be simply done by creating an electronic petition to the ARRL signed by as many current members of the DXCC program as possible, clearly spelling out what sort of change the petitioners think is needed. There is a great website which can be used for this purpose -   see https://www.change.org/start-a-petition – and it should be easy to publicise a petition of this kind, using reflectors.
>
> For many years I was involved in administrating amateur soccer and have experience of using electronic petitions as a means of showing an administrative body the level of support for specific changes to the way the game is run.  In my experience, electronic petitions are a viable way to get rules changed these days. Some people hate them, but BIG petitions actually do get results.
>
> Hope the above summary of ideas was of interest. Please excuse me now and I’ll get along to the low end of 160m, start doing something practical like CQing and stop worrying about the demise of old school radio (which I’ve probably greatly exaggerated).
>
> Vy 73
>
> Steve, VK6VZ/G3ZZD
>
>
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