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

[W0MU Mike Fatchett]

So why does everyone have to play by your rules and not those of the 
people giving out the awards?  How about the built in 10 to 15 db 
advantage of living next to the pond may give?  Remote radio is ok but 
Digital is not.

You get your awards your way, I will get mine mine.

73

W0MU


On 10/26/2017 2:27 PM, k8bhz at alphacomm.net wrote:
> 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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