[VHFcontesting] FT8 and the ARRL June VHF Contest - Reformatted!

[Lloyd - N9LB]

My observations...

6M was frequently open for the week leading up to the ARRL June VHF Contest.  I had a chance to play with JT8 during that week.  It worked well, the weak signal capabilities on a non-congested band were remarkable, and I collected many new Fred Fish grids and four new DXCC entities.  

However during the contest FT8 really folded up.  50. 313 was severely overloaded ( actually 50.313 to 50.316 MHz )

Hours of wasted calling, scrambled calls and grids, reception of "one shot" CQs, never to be detected again, partial contacts never completed, no clear spots in the Wide Graph spectrum display to TX, etc.

3KHz just won't hold all the stations that used to occupy 50.100-50.300.  There needs to be several additional FT8 base frequencies ( maybe 50.316, 50.319, 50.323, 50.326, 50.329 maybe even more ??? ) 

I assume this limitation has already been discovered and that is what lead to the special "DXpedition Mode", but that that won't be of use in a band opening during a contest like the June VHF Test.

73

Lloyd - N9LB  EN52

P.S.  What the hell is wrong with the guys that were calling "CQ DX" all contest long and never responded to any NA stations during the contest when the band was open to most of NA ???