[VHFcontesting] FT8 in the CQ WW VHF contest....

[Marshall-K5QE]

Hello to all VHF contesters.....The CQ WW VHF contest is this 
weekend(21st and 22nd July).  When there is no Es on 6M, we plan to be 
on MSK144 meteor scatter or FT8.  Seems reasonable...

However, the rules allow what CQ calls active assistance ONLY for 
digital meteor scatter or digital EME.  SO, when we are on either of 
those, we will use the appropriate reflector....PingJockey for MSK144 
meteor scatter and the N0UK EME-1 page for EME.

I know that there are a lot of folks that are nutty about FT8, so I 
assume that there will be a lot of it going on. Since FT8 is not digital 
meteor scatter or digital EME, I believe that active assistance(use of 
Internet resources) is NOT allowed.  I am not a rules official of CQ, so 
I am not trying to make an "official ruling", but I believe that this is 
correct. I don't want anyone to be disqualified because they were using 
the Internet reflectors and chat rooms for FT8. Maybe some CQ contest 
official will make a post to let us know for sure.

I wonder if the scores will be approximately the same using MSK144 
meteor scatter with assistance(PingJockey) compared to using FT8 without 
any assistance.  If the propagation is not up to Es, but is almost 
there, FT8 may be great.  But if the propagation is worse than that, 
meteor scatter may yield more grid mults, since you can post to 
PingJockey.  What do you think?

Quoting the Knight Bus driver in Harry Potter, "It's going to be a bumpy 
ride".

GL in the contest...see you on Sat and Sun.

73 Marshall K5QE