[VHFcontesting] Digital modes in the VHF contests....

[Marshall-K5QE]

Hello Alex....the "rules" for what constitutes a proper VHF contact have 
been set for over 50 years.  No less than Ed Tilton-W1HDQ was the person 
involved in the very early days.  A proper VHF contact requires the 
sending and receiving on both ends of both calls, a signal report of 
some kind, and a Roger.  In a contest, the signal report is the 
GRID....+07 is absolutely useless.

IF the HF newbies would send TX1, which does contain the grid, 
consistently, then we could get that piece of information from there.  
However, often THEY DON'T.  They send TX2 which DOES NOT have the grid.  
This means that you cannot get the grid over the air and hence the 
contact is not valid.  You can waste a huge amount of time trying to get 
one of these guys to send his grid OR you can just move on to someone 
that knows what they are doing.  Your choice.

I did run into a few ops that were still sending "the funny little 
numbers" on MSK.  All that I recall did send TX1 so that I could get the 
GRID.  I did exactly what you recommend....I sent RRR and went on down 
the road.

I don't care how the HFers operate when they are on HF.  I care a lot 
about how they operate when they are on the VHF bands.  I and many 
others, don't want the kind of operating the we hear on HF to infect the 
VHF bands.  In the UK, if you drive on the right hand side of the road, 
you will be pulled over and given a ticket.  That is because you don't 
know the "rules of the road" for the road on which you are driving.

I believe that with some education, the newer ops will learn what is 
acceptable and what is not.  Apparently, it is going to take some time.  
I think that a major problem is sending the "funny little numbers" 
during casual operation.  I believe that we should send GRIDS at all 
times on VHF.  That is what we do on the other modes, why should FT8 and 
/ or MSK be different?  This will undoubtedly cause a pot load of 
flames, but I have a delete key and I know how to use it.  If we show 
the beginners the "funny little numbers" all the time and then when we 
have a contest, we do something different, they will never learn.

Thoughtful replies gratefully accepted.....flames---->bit bucket.

73 Marshall K5QE


On 1/25/2018 6:39 PM, Alex wrote:
> Perhaps some "VHF types" could behave less like "HF newbies" and learn 
> to just send an RRR message when that happens. That will advance the 
> other side to the 73 message. You already got their grid on the first 
> message.
>
> 73,
> --Alex KR1ST
> FN21
>
> On 2018-01-25 18:37, Marshall-K5QE wrote:
>
>> ...and that took a long time, because we kept
>> running into "HF newbies" that were not using the contest mode.
>> ASIDE:  Somehow, we need to get these HF types to learn that we need
>> grids not +07 for a signal report.  END ASIDE
>