[VHFcontesting] Announcements and VHF contesting....

[Keith Morehouse]

Allowing such a thing for digital operation is fine and in line with
what CQ allows in their VHF test.  Personally, I would take this one
step FURTHER and allow ANNOUNCEMENTS for any band or mode at any time,
for any class of entry.  For example:

(announce) W9RM DM58 144.210 CQ CW EAST

The idea is to get the activity level up and for the vast number of
non-serious contesters, knowing someone was there and trying to work
guys could do it.  Sure, in the beginning, the chats might be clogged
to overflow with these messages, but, in the long term, I believe only
those who are successful in working people after one of these
ANNONCEMENTS would persist in doing it.

Jay W9RM


Keith J Morehouse
Managing Partner
Calmesa Partners G.P.
Montrose, CO


On Thu, Sep 19, 2013 at 4:55 PM, Marshall-K5QE <k5qe at k5qe.com> wrote:
> Hello to everyone interested in the "Assistance" concept for VHF
> contesting....
>
> My last post was made at 2AM, so I am not sure how coherent it was.
> Hopefully, not too bad.....
>
> Les-N1LF made an observation recently that was, I believe, terribly
> important.  He observed that A)All VHF contesting is local, B)Those in the
> famous "Golden Corridor" have a tremendous advantage over the rest of us who
> live in the sticks(the high population density of hams), and that C)To a
> very large extent, those that oppose "assistance" live in the NE.  LES, I
> hope I have stated the gist of your post correctly.
>
> Jay-W9RM made a post wherein he talked about ANNOUNCEMENTS rather than
> Assistance.  I think that this is a genius idea.  The concept of
> "assistance" has become way too fuzzy and ill defined.  It means different
> things to different folks.  The Anti-Assistance folks have taken advantage
> of this in various nefarious ways.  To way too many, "assistance" means
> making real time schedules during the contest....which I don't really see
> anything wrong with, but the legacy HFers go into heart fibrillations
> whenever this is mentioned. By the way, Announcements would make "real time
> scheduling" unnecessary.
>
> I propose that we start talking about making ANNOUNCEMENTS in VHF
> contesting.  An ANNOUNCEMENT will have to be carefully defined to prevent
> abuse.  Although CQ does not mention announcements, it is clear that their
> concept is that IF you are calling CQ on digital meteor scatter(MS) or
> digital EME, you can announce Call, Frequency, and Sequence ONLY on the
> Internet reflectors, packet clusters, whatever.  Such an announcement does
> not convey any QSO information, only that you are calling CQ and where you
> are located.  When you receive a call and get a good decode, you will
> receive both his call and your call, so all QSO information has passed over
> the radio path--thus satisfying Tilton's Rule.
>
> I propose that an Announcement should be defined to be your Call, Frequency,
> and Sequence ONLY.  The idea of posting Call, Frequency, and Sequence ONLY
> was first brought forward by a very well known Pacific Northwest VHFer(and a
> couple of others as I recall), so it is not my idea, but it is an incredibly
> good idea. If we follow the CQ idea, an Announcement would be permitted only
> for stations calling CQ on digital MS or digital EME.
>
> ASIDE1:  Why allow Announcements for those modes and not for others??
> Digital EME signals are quite often not detectable by ear.  So, you could
> "turn the dial" until the cows come home and you would never hear a weak
> digital EME signal.  You would tune right past it.  However, I work such
> signals all the time and others can as well, IF they can find them.  If I
> Announce "CQ K5QE 144.142MHz Second" then everyone knows where I am.  Just
> tune there and see if you can work me.  I want to stress this--An
> Announcement does not WORK anyone, you have to actually do that yourself.
> Only then can you put them in the log.  As Jay-W9RM has so carefully pointed
> out, if someone intent on cheating were to enter me into his log just based
> on my Announcement, when the log checking process was applied, the bogus QSO
> would be removed from his log and he would be penalized points.  It seems to
> me that no one is stupid enough to do this.....but I am probably wrong on
> that.
>
> ASIDE2:  Meteor scatter is not a weak signal mode, but signals are
> essentially random in time.  If you carefully tune a given frequency, say
> 50.265MHz, you most likely will not hear anything. After you tune away
> trying to find a signal somewhere else, a large burn may occur.   What this
> means is that tuning for MS signals is essentially a waste of time....you
> will very likely never hear anything.  A simple Announcement solves this
> problem very nicely.  Now stations all around the country know where I am
> calling CQ.  IF they are within MS range, they can try to call me and
> hopefully a QSO will result.  This system is FAR superior to the system that
> we now use(everyone calls on 50.260MHz with an offset frequency where the
> QSO is supposed to actually take place).  Seasoned MS ops know the current
> system and for them it works OK.  Newer ops really don't understand what is
> going on and contacts with them are frequently lost because they don't
> understand the idea of moving to make a QSO.  An Announcement would tell
> everyone where I am calling CQ with no need for the "bait and switch" method
> we now have.
>
> I believe that we should all contact our Director and request that
> Announcements be allowed in VHF contesting for digital MS and digital EME.
> This is not going to rend the fabric of VHF contesting, but it sure will
> make it a lot more fun as dozens of "rare" grids will now find their way
> into the logs.  I don't think that this is too much of a stretch for the
> folks at the League. If it is, then we are DOOMED as my son likes to say.
>
> I forwarded my previous post to my Director, and I will do the same with
> this one.  We need to try to get the Directors to understand what needs to
> be done....
>
> 73 Marshall K5QE
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