[VHFcontesting] Contest rules etc.

[w8zn at comcast.net]

I've been watching this for several days, weeks, months.

I have some simple observations.

Back in the 80's, during a September contest I believe, there was a huge tropo opening between the midwest (Cincinnati area) to northern Texas. Unfortunately, the band opened around 2 AM. Al Ward, WB5LUA then, was the only station I could find to work. For hours we would say hi inbetween calling CQ's. Just think if we could have called others and said get on the band is open!! But by the rule definition, this is a grey area, is it soliciting contacts?

Every time you make a sked, either before or during the contest, you get someone else on the air, and the chances are, they will work others. This is a GOOD thing..... I think.

As I believe Marshall pointed out many posts ago, it's one thing to get someone on, get your 2 degree beamwidth dish pointed the right direction, hope your transverter hasn't drifted more than 20 KHz off frequency and hope the guy's clock on the other end is sync'ed to WWV like yours is. And then work him by exchanging calls and the report that the contest sponsor has required you to give out.

Yes, you could do this by first working them on 6, 2, 222, or 432 and then just moving them, but what if you have choosen not to have those bands? How many answers to CQ's do you get on 903 or 1296? Divide that number by 10 and you get the number of times you get answered on 2304 and divide that by 10 for 3456 and up.

So I guess if you are not calling your buddy and saying "get on and work me but don't work anyone else", then getting more folks on the air any way you can helps activity which generally helps everyone. 

Now obviously, you can't have on the phone, chat net or even a different VHF band while trying to make a contact and "coach" the QSO.

Bottom line is, there is some reason there is a decline in VHF participation, and we need to understand why and try to fix it.

73,

Terry