[VHFcontesting] 432 Sprint and Spotting

Tue Apr 28 16:51:45 EDT 2015

Hi Marshall et al,

Thanks for the great Falklands EME DXPEDITION!  The card you have sent 
QSO partners is Beautiful!

You and those not living in the NorthEast are probably unaware that 
Phil's note to the list did not arrive ex nihilo.  Rather, at the 
recently convened NEWS conference there were two sessions involving 
several dozen active VHF and UP'ers discussing the best way to make use 
of the new ARRL VHF and UP rules.  Phil chaired both of these sessions.  
Lots of bright guys were in attendance and contributed :)

Chat pages were discussed along with other newly available modalities at 
these sessions, which spanned at least a couple of hours of freewheeling 
discussion.

Many operators indicated that they did not want "one more thing" to have 
to watch during a contest.  That is, they didn't want to have to keep an 
eye on a chat page.

It was pointed out that the major logging programs e.g. N1MM+ and 
WriteLog already have cluster access built into them.  Furthermore, it 
was pointed out that it is simple to set filters to limit spots to 
frequencies of 50 MHz and above [or even to set filters band by band].  
Filters can also be set up simply by geographical region [e.g. states, 
as long as the call is in the usdb database].  For those of you who are 
not familiar with filters, you can get a taste of what they can do at:
http://www.dxcluster.org/main/filtering_en.html

So it is a simple matter to set up the cluster spot window in your 
logging program to include any/all bands 40 MHz and above, and no HF 
bands.  It is a simple matter to setup the cluster spot window to 
include whatever geographic region that you want.  You can limit by 
geographic area if you desire, or keep it wide open.

Those present were much more amenable to keeping an eye on a cluster 
spot window in a logging program than they were to adding a chat window 
to their armamentarium, possibly because many of them are also HF 
contesters, and are already used to keeping an eye on their logger's 
cluster spot window.

So this idea has already been discussed by dozens of East Coast VHF 
stations, and we are going to proceed at this point, after extensive and 
freewheeling discussion, by using the clusters.  Every operator is free 
to use or not use the clusters, chat pages, whatever. Certainly there 
will be changes in operating procedures as we proceed.  But for ANY of 
these methods to work, a critical mass of users is necessary.  At this 
point we are going to try to achieve this using the clusters.  It is 
most important for hams within a region to all follow a similar path.  
If hams in different regions follow different paths, the detrimental 
effect of disparate behavior will be much less than the effect of hams 
within a region following multiple different paths, and thus ensuring 
that no path reaches the critical mass of participants required for success.

There are other ideas that we discussed at the NEWS Conference on how to 
make the clusters even more useful.  I believe that there will be more 
information forthcoming on all of this at some point in the near to 
moderately near future.  As I am not the one writing up the Conference 
Summary, I will not attempt to offer a more specific time frame.

Others who were at the sessions may wish to chime in.  Different 
observers always have differences in their reporting of any event.

Very 73,

Roger Rehr W3SZ

http://www.nitehawk.com/w3sz

On 4/28/2015 2:45 PM, Marshall-K5QE wrote:
> Hello Phil and other VHF contesters.....
>
> In the past, I have never thought the DX Cluster was worth anything 
> for VHF.  Occasionally, you would see a few 6M spots, but almost never 
> did you see a spot for 2M, never mind for anything above that.  Phil 
> has brought up something that needs to be considered and solved before 
> very long.  Now that we can Announce our Call, Frequency, and 
> Sequence(and a few other things too), we need to figure out HOW and 
> WHERE to post so that more QSOs result.
>
> Because VHF is regional by nature(except for EME), posting to a 
> national resource(cluster, chat page, reflector, whatever) is not 
> going to be productive.  For those of us in TX, it does not do much 
> good for someone in WA to post their desire for meteor scatter 
> contacts.  Clearly, the reverse is true as well.  I have been mulling 
> this problem over in my mind and have not come up with any great 
> solution.
>
> I have thought that we might have regional chat pages where you can 
> look for stations in your general region.  For meteor scatter, we 
> might have something like west coast, central US, and east coast. 
> Clearly, for many, these areas overlap.  I can see problems with this 
> idea, but if everyone posts everything to PingJockey, 1)their server 
> will probably collapse, 2)the posts would be running up the screen so 
> fast that you would never see anyone that you wanted to work, even if 
> they were there.
>
> I just returned from a 2M EME DXpedition to the Falkland Islands. I 
> had Dan-N5TM make me a "private" chat room just for that expedition.  
> It was great.  Anyone in the chat room was just there to work us....we 
> did not have to endure anyone talking about their feedlines or 
> concealing their flagpole verticals.  While this is a wonderful 
> approach for DXpeditions and it could be the basis of the east coast, 
> west coast, and central US chat pages, it might not be the correct 
> approach for a contest environment.  In other words, this idea might 
> be unworkable for one reason or another.
>
> SO, I ask everyone interested in this idea, to think hard about how we 
> can best use the new resources that we are finally allowed. Maybe we 
> will have to segregate things by mode, so that stations seeking MS 
> contacts will have chat pages / reflectors dedicated to just that.  I 
> just don't know how this should be made to work.  We have lots of 
> bright guys out there, now is the time for us to figure this one out.....
>
> See you in the June ARRL and the July CQ WW VHF contests......
>
> 73 Marshall K5QE
>
>
> On 4/28/2015 9:59 AM, Phil Theis wrote:
>> Greetings,
>> During the last two sprints several of us have been experimenting 
>> with the DX Cluster.
>> Lets see if we can generate more activity this Wednesday evening by 
>> generating spots.
>> Do it on anyone you hear calling CQ.  But also it would be nice to 
>> know who is lurking on the bands.  That way we know to turn antennas 
>> in the right direction and then call cq.
>> For instance, if I know that VE3ZV is calling others, I can turn my 
>> antenna and call CQ in his direction.
>> So figure out your logger, connect it to the internet, and generate 
>> some spots during the Sprint.
>> I will be on ON4KST as well, but the spotting network makes things so 
>> much easier by putting the information right there in front of you in 
>> the logger.  I use N1MM+, it is working great for VHF.
>> See you all on.   Let hope for some great conditions.
>> 73,
>> Phil K3TUF FN10we
>
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