[VHFcontesting] My Proposal to the VUAC

[Duane - N9DG]

--- On Tue, 3/17/09, Kenneth E. Harker <kenharker at kenharker.com> wrote:
> However, what he is arguing for is the ability to do things
> that are 
> currently prohibited for all entrants for all major HF (and
> VHF) contests.
> Those changes would radically change how the top,
> competitive stations
> operate the contest, and would have a serious negative
> impact on the 
> contest. 

I agree.

In between contests I have on numerous occasions found and worked openings on the VHF bands that were *never* reported on the prop logger pages at all. So where does that leave those who want to base their operating strategies on using prop loggers etc. for their VHF contesting? Would it basically require that the bigger guns to self spot just to get other casual ops to even want to begin looking for them? And if the prop logger driven ops don't call CQ as much, or at all, how will the other casual, "non prop logger" driven stations find anyone to work? 

Bottom line is that the top scorers in VHF contests don't just sit still. They call CQ ... a lot. They swing their antennas .... a lot. They scour width swaths of frequencies near continuously. Do we really want to replace all of that with self spotting and Internet coordinated real-time quasi-scheduled Q's? If so, then how does anyone actually find all the various propagation paths and openings?

Duane
N9DG