[VHFcontesting] 144.174 FT8 activity

[Alex]

+1 for 144.174 for FT8. It seems that that's the frequency where people 
are finding each other now.

If anything, this discussion really makes me appreciate how reasonably 
well things work on HF. There you have beacons, automatic station, all 
kinds of different digital modes (some of them smack dab in the middle 
of the SSB portion of the band), digital voice, analogue voice, CW, 
contests, nets, non-aligned band plans between various regions, less 
space on many of the bands than we have in the weak signal portion of 2m 
alone, etc. Oh, and lets not forget that these bands often provide world 
wide propagation with a bit more activity than we find in the weak 
signal portion of the 2m band that is mostly void of activity at any 
given time, has maybe a handful of nets, 15 days or so of contests a 
year, people using chat rooms to find each other (including me!), and 
more time may be spent waiting for a magic red blob to appear on a map 
than calling CQ on the calling channel. It's a wonder we can even make a 
QSO on HF with all that chaos going on. ;-)

One could even argue that FT8 should receive priority consideration when 
it comes to frequency assignment because it acts like a call channel and 
has much better channel utilization than most other modes.

I'm for whichever solution will create the most activity. Right now that 
seems be be by staying on .174 instead of trying to establish yet 
another watering whole. The well has been dug, let's drink! :-)

73,
--Alex KR1ST (FN21fk)