[VHFcontesting] Are EME/MS digital QSOes reducing rovers contributions?

[Mark W7MEM McMillan]

Since NO rovers were heard or worked In DN17 for the last 2-3 years I am just working Locals some who do get on and look east. MOST of my grid and Mults are EME/MS ..Just saying     Mark W7MEM

> From: mark at alignedsolutions.com
> Date: Wed, 16 Sep 2015 11:50:36 -0700
> To: vhfcontesting at contesting.com
> Subject: Re: [VHFcontesting] Are EME/MS digital QSOes reducing rovers	contributions?
> 
> A few comments re this.   
> 
> I've found that MS / long haul digital qso's are challenging to make while roving / portable especially if I don't have good Internet connectivity.  Over 90 percent of the successful MS / long haul digi mode QSO's that I have made outside of contests would not have happened without constant access to the internet by both me and the other station.  These QSO's on average probably took 30 minutes or so to complete.
> 
> During the last contest I spent about an hour in total of my six and a half hours of prime operating time in a semi rare grid trying to work MS with no results.   About half this time was spent in an effort to work a station in a rare grid that prior to the contest had announced they were going to run on digi modes.   Deciding to run MS / digi modes was my choice though and on balance I'd probably do it again as I would have liked to work the rare grid, and I figured I had a reasonable chance of picking up at least one more grid in that hour, but things didn't work out that way.
> 
> (Between the 11am pst contest start time, and my desire to have a two hour tear down and packup process done before nightfall I had about 6 and a half hours to run the entire station.   I was able to keep the 2M station up until the very end.  Staying overnight is also apparently not allowed in that location.)
> 
> I doubt I will run MS or long haul digi modes in a future contest without a pre arranged sched on a frequency other than the customary calling frequencies, and preferably some form of near real time communications with the other station to confirm that they are looking for me.  
> 
> In hindsight during the last contest I'm almost certain I would have picked up more grids and or bands by focusing on terrestrial ssb / CW for another hour, but hindsight is 20/20 and I wanted to work the rare grid more than I wanted to simply run up my score.
> 
> To answer the question though, In my case at least the answers is that yes, MS / digi efforts did in hindsight reduce my roving contribution.  I'll put more thought into running these modes or not in future contests.  All that being said I do like having the option to run these modes and I'm fine with the rules as they are.   I just need to put more thought into how I choose to run my station.
> 
> 73's Mark S
> VE7AFZ
> 
> Sent from my iPad
> 
> 
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