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

[Mark W7MEM McMillan]

SteveI spent Hours calling to DN02 fro DN17 on 6-2m with  4X5el ,KW on 6m and 4X 2.5wl .KW on 2m. Never heard you once. I  guess you were not on 50.125 or 144.200. East the Mountains these are the ONLY freq your going to find anyone. I only worked 10-11 in DN08,13,15,17,18,19,27,28 on all bands CN87,88 on MS 
Mark W7MEM

> Date: Wed, 16 Sep 2015 13:58:54 -0700
> From: ke7ihg at gmail.com
> To: mark at alignedsolutions.com
> Subject: Re: [VHFcontesting] Are EME/MS digital QSOes reducing rovers	contributions?
> CC: vhfcontesting at contesting.com
> 
> I traveled to DN02 this contest...had no phone or internet. Worked my ×@$
> off and spent a fair amount of money.
> In the end I had 18 Q's....Would I have done better with spotting, yes I
> think so.
> I'm not sure I'll travel to any remote grids again without access to the
> world.
> It was fun and a beautiful trip but also was frustrating.
> Very hard to justify that much treasure , both in sweat , time and money.
> 
> Like it or not I am good with spotting and I doubt that anyone who wants
> mults, particularly rare ones would complain
> 
> Steve / KE7IHG
> On Sep 16, 2015 11:50 AM, "Mark Spencer" <mark at alignedsolutions.com> wrote:
> 
> > 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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