Topband: Straws in the Wind ....A 160m Dx'ing Sea Change is Upon us!

[Brian Pease]

When 90% of band activity is taking place in ~1% of the available 
bandwidth, it gets one's attention, doesn't it.
Personally, I have always considered DXpedition, and especially contest, 
CW exchanges to be a bit silly, with nearly everyone getting a 5NN 
signal report.  With today's technology I think eventually a computer 
will be able  sort out a CW pileup nearly as well as a human, and do it 
24/7 while perhaps giving more accurate signal reports.  Maybe someday 
there will be unmanned solar-powered stations on remote DX entities.  It 
is certainly much easier than self-driving cars, which should be sorted 
out in a few years.

On 3/30/2018 1:02 PM, Ed Sawyer wrote:
> My thoughts on FT8:
>
>   
>
> -          How is it actually a Q from our normal perspective?  The comments
> Jeff made on the fact that 2 operators (on both sides of the circuit) could
> see evidence of each other for 20 minutes before the "computers" finally
> made the connection - is proof that the operator is not making the QSO.
>
> -          There is a floating robot in the Pacific making FT8 QSOs with
> people right now - unattended.
>
> -          3Z9DX has stated that they will leave an FT8 station going 24/7
> (which means unattended) on T31.
>
> -          Are these what we want to count as QSOs?  What about in contests
> - FT8 is already infiltrating VHF contests.  Should they be considered valid
> contest Qs - while you sleep?
>
> -          I agree with Jeff and others that for people that that consider
> topband a PTA to operate and/or are not CW operators - 160M looks like the
> perfect place to drop a robot and go concentrate on something else.  But
> isn't this a slippery slope?  What about 10M/12M since the sunspots are low.
> Or 80M because the static crashes in the tropics are terrible - etc.  Before
> you know it the whole DXpedition is an FT8 robot while the "crew" is
> lounging about the pool with the XYL/YLs.
>
> -          If we continue to facilitate such nonsense, they we deserve what
> we get in my opinion.  If we decide that the band counter is so important we
> don't care how we have to get it, then its time to look in the mirror folks.
>
> -          On the other hand, maybe some people are happier with the
> computer doing the heavy lifting of digging out the QSO.  Personally, count
> me out of that list.
>
>   
>
> Ed  N1UR
>
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