[VHFcontesting] The digital modes and the Sept contest....

[Ron Klimas WZ1V]

HI Marshall: You are spot on about FT8. 
I'm a complete "newbie" myself but quickly 
realized the problem. Perhaps the ARRL could 
help by publishing guidelines for it's use in the 
VHF Contest rules. IMO if it clearly stated 
you must be set to "Contest-Mode" Grid exchange, 
and you must use manual sequence advancement, 
ie. "Auto-Mode" must be off for contests, 
it would greatly alleviate the problem. 
A Primer about how to manually sequence though 
the exchanges required for a valid contact 
couldn't hurt either. 
-73 Ron WZ1V

----- Original Message -----
From: Marshall-K5QE <k5qe at k5qe.com>
To: VHF Contesting <vhfcontesting at contesting.com>
Date: Mon, 11 Sep 2017 22:48:21 -0500
Subject: [VHFcontesting] The digital modes and the Sept contest....

> Hello all....I have read all the comments about the digital modes and 
the Sept contest--some of them twice.  Here are my observations.

FT8 was practically useless here.  I worked a few stations, but many, 
many more on MSK144.  The problems that I saw were almost all related to 
newbie ops that don't have any idea what the proper protocols are or how 
to use them.  EVERYONE needs to understand what constitutes a valid VHF 
contact and be sure that the correct information is sent and 
received--calls in both directions, grids in both directions, and a 
Roger in both directions.  This definition has served us well for years, 
and years, and years.  Everyone should know it.

     A)The beginners do not understand that a contact is not complete(in 
a contest at least) unless the grid is exchanged in both directions.  I 
saw more than one station that sent several messages and the grid was 
nowhere to be found.  I even saw one or two where the call was not 
there--they went right away to R-15 or something like that.
     B)A big problem for me, is the sending of the "funny little 
numbers".  It is very unfortunate that the program defaults to this kind 
of messages.  If station1 does not have contest mode checked and 
station2 does, then the messages do not seem to decode properly on one 
end or the other.  The newbies can't decode the "contest messages"(my 
guess), so they just keep sending the same message until they get tired 
and give up.  I have been told the reason for the "funny numbers", but 
it did not make any sense to me.
     C)JT65 is a well defined protocol with very well defined messages.  
This new version of WSJT-X has upended all that with the sending of the 
"funny little numbers".  The newbies don't know what the proper messages 
are, so they don't understand why they don't decode correctly.  When you 
send {his call} {your call} {your grid} OOO, they don't have a clue.  I 
know that this can be fixed by checking the "Enable VHF and Microwave 
features" AND the SH box in WSJT-X, but beginners don't seem to know 
this.  A lot of this could be fixed with some serious education articles 
before the Jan contest.  The newbies don't seem to know that JT65A is 
for 6M, while JT65B is for 2M, 222, and 432.  More education, I guess.  
We did not use JT65 for any tropo type contacts.  We did use it for our 
EME contacts on 2M and 432.  We used WSJT v9.3(works good, lasts a long 
time), which works perfectly, of course.

On the other hand, MSK144 was a dream this time, considering that there 
was absolutely NO Es on 6M for us.  We had to use MSK for hours and 
hours on end.  Very, very few contacts, if any, were busted because of 
ops that did not know what they were doing.  The reason, obviously, is 
that the ops we worked DID know what they were doing.  MSK is a much 
slower mode for sure, but we worked a lot of "rare" grids this time on 
6M because of it.  We also worked MSK on 2M and 222(more rare grids).  
It worked very well there as well.  I keep saying that a LOT of 222 
contacts can be made with MSK that otherwise would be lost.  We worked 
everyone that would try with us on 222 using MSK....in relatively short 
order.

I guess that the BOTTOM LINE is that we need to educate the newbies as 
to what the proper messages are and WHY.  In the contests, we must have 
GRIDS.  We could do this education via articles or via chat pages, 
whatever.  Hopefully, in the Jan contest, most of this will be settled 
out.  I certainly hope so.

Well thought out comments gratefully accepted and thoughtfully 
considered.  Flames---->bit bucket.

I sincerely hope that everyone had a good contest, in spite of the poor 
conditions.

73 Marshall K5QE
k5qe at k5qe.com
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