[VHFcontesting] My Proposal to the VUAC

[Kenneth E. Harker]

     I haven't commented on this yet, so here goes.  FWIW, I am in the West 
Gulf Division and try to operate at least one or two VHF contests a year 
(as a guest op or multiop), with a particular interest in the six meter band 
over the others.  I began contesting about 50% VHF, 50% HF, but in recent 
years I have been doing a lot more HF contesting.  I have been actively 
contesting since 1996.  I am in the West Gulf Division, and I have a strong
negative reaction to Marshall's proposal.



> Via the responses that I received, I have come to understand that there 
> are some ops who believe in what most would call Search & 
> Pounce(S&P)--tuning the bands carefully, listening for others calling CQ 
> or calling CQ yourself, and making whatever contacts come your way.  The 
> people who are into this mode of operation believe that this method 
> produces a contact that is "more pure", "more valid", or "more valuable" 
> than contacts made via schedules. 

I've never heard the term "Search & Pounce" used to describe calling CQ and 
waiting for responses.  S&P refers to tuning the radio and looking for 
others calling CQ.  The act of calling CQ and waiting for responses is 
most often referred to as "running" or "CQing".  They are two different 
activities.  

But, syntax issues aside, Marshall makes a valid point - many of us feel that 
unscheduled (or "random" if you want to use meteor scatter operation 
terminology) QSOs are what the contests should be about.  Contesting should
be about operating the radio - and schedules (especially real-time schedules
made out-of-band on the internet or via telephone) are contrary to that 
philosophy because they remove key elements of the radio operation skill 
set from the equation.



> I have nothing against the guys that wish to operate in this manner and 
> I believe that they should continue to operate in a manner that they 
> enjoy.  However, to those of us that believe in "making as many contacts 
> as possible, on as many different bands as possible, to as many 
> different VHF stations as possible, for as long a distance as possible", 
> this is just not a very efficient method of operation.  I want to be 
> WORKING as many stations as possible during the contest period.  As I 
> said in Appendix 1, "In the VHF world, you must have precise control of 
> antenna pointing(both directions), frequency, mode, sequencing, and the 
> time of the attempt to make a single contact".  Assistance makes this 
> possible as opposed to just hoping that you "bump" into another station 
> on the bands. 

Many VHF ops have this unfortunate opinion that finding other stations on
the air is all accidental or fortuitous.  It is more difficult than on HF.
It does take skill, and you get better at it with practice.  

Consider Marshall's position taken to its logical conclusion.  If all, or 
a large percentage, of contest QSOs are being made because of off-air 
scheduling arrangements, how are newcomers going to break into the action?
They won't.  They will feel excluded, and because most of the so-called
radio contest is actually taking place off the air, they won't be able to 
connect with it.  The joy of operating a radio contest is in operating the 
radio with a wild, unpredictable natural environment - not in operating
an email client or a web browser.

I would counter-propose that ARRL VHF contests should adopt the same 
philosophy as the (much more successful) ARRL HF contests and ban 
pre-arranged schedules for making contacts during the contest.  If 
stations need to find one another on the air, there will be more CQing, 
more tuning, more overall activity to benefit everyone.



> Because I believe that "Contacts are King", how and when "assistance" is 
> rendered is just not an important issue.  If you make a schedule before 
> the contest or during the contest, is just not relevant.....you still 
> have to WORK the other station while observing the strict definition of 
> what constitutes a VHF contact(Tilton's Rule).  Via reflectors and/or 
> propagation loggers, you would know who was on and where they were.  
> This would allow you to work as many of them as possible.  Since 
> everyone(except Rovers) has the Internet these days, there is no 
> advantage to one station over another.  On the other side of that coin, 
> it does me no good to know that W7XYZ/R is in CN88 ready to run the 
> bands.  I can't work him anyway.

This is an awful idea.  How are you operating your radio if you find 
all the stations you "work" via the internet?  How fun is that?  No fun
at all.  It is so much more challenging, interesting, and fun to not know 
the call sign or grid locator of the other station until you work them.
Correctly copying call signs is an important skill that contesting rewards.
Getting an unknown call sign right despite accents, unusual phonetics, 
fading, weak signals, QRM, noise, etc., etc. can be hard but very satisfying.
If you already know the other stations' call sign and grid locator before
you ever hear their signal, you have completely removed accurate copying
from the challenge of the QSO.  Let's not make VHF contesting so boring 
and easy that nobody wants to do it anymore.
 


> Speaking of rovers, how will all this affect them?  The most common 
> complaint that I have heard from rover stations is that they arrive at 
> some new grid, sometimes a rare one, and they cannot "attract" anyone's 
> attention.  So they sit there for an hour or two and work only a very 
> few stations.  

Getting people off the internet and back to tuning their own radios is
the best way to fix this.  Encouraging people to use the internet more
(probably with the radio volume turned down so they can concentrate on
the screen) is the wrong answer to this problem.

>               I have heard this complaint over and over again--from 
> rovers here in the West Gulf Division as well as from rovers around the 
> country.  It is very frustrating to the rover guys when this 
> happens--and it seems to happen a lot.  An Assisted Rover could call 
> several of the big stations in his area on the cell phone and alert them 
> that "I am in EL28 and ready to run".  This would allow the rover to 
> work as many stations as possible--which is, after all, why he is out 
> there.  As an added bonus, other stations(both Assisted and 
> Non-Assisted) would hear these contacts being made.  This would result 
> in additional contacts that would otherwise never occur. 

This is possibly the worst idea ever.  Do we really want competitive 
stations to employ a "telephone operator" going through lists of phone
numbers for all known stations within 800 miles, calling them to make 
sure they get on and work them?  Or writing contest spam bots to do the
same thing every 15 minutes?  How is that operating a radio contest?
Marshall presents a situation that seems harmless enough at first, but 
it doesn't take a lot of forethought to see that the logical conclusion 
of this direction is absurd.



I hope the ARRL VUAC continues to see value in sponsoring radio competitions
rather than internet competitions.


-- 
Kenneth E. Harker WM5R
kenharker at kenharker.com
http://www.kenharker.com/