[VHFcontesting] Rovers and FM in contesting

[Bill Burgess]

In contesting, we have winners, a few by score and the majority by attitude.  Both are to be congratulated.  But we also have those bearing negativity which does nothing to enhance our great sport of contesting.  Very sad.

Recently, some have proposed, very wisely, that we encourage more who have only fm gear to get involved in contesting.  The bug is catching, so why not let them be bitten by it too?  Now I read that those using FM are making flawed contacts and must be flagged with an asterisk to show this to be true.  Really now!

In the UHF contest last weekend, I made a total of 20 contacts in 4 grids, on 223.5.  The closest was 30 miles away, the farthest 261 miles away and loud too.  Do you think those at the other end were using rubber duckies?
I have two 222 transverters not on the air yet, so using the Icom IC-3 into a Mirage 20 watt amp was the alternate choice.  From FN14 after being told how loud I was in FN32 with W2SZ I turned the amp off and was still clear copy running 1.5 watts.  Antenna used was a K1FO 16 elmt with clamps loose so I could rotate it to match the antenna at the other end when needed as it was about 10 feet off the ground.  

I did run ssb/cw on 432, 903 and 2304 btw.

So the bottom line is this:  If I am flawed for my use of FM, tell me why.  If not, encourage newbies to get involved too using whatever they have available.

Yours in good contesting sportsmanship,

Bill VE3CRU/R
Bill

Email: ve3cru at rac.ca