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

[k2drh at frontiernet.net]

 Keith nailed it for the serious contester  .. RULE #1 you go to the band/mode/whatever that yields the highest rate!  But one caveat for VHF that makes it different is that you can't (usually) win on one band and you may have to make the occasional exception to run a Rover and/or a multiband station that is there now but won't be later for the extra points and mults.  If your at a multi like Keith was that is taken care of by others. But staying on FT8 or even CW when you can get a better rate on SSB is just plain poor decision making. As is waiting in a DX pileup .. it's just one more 6M mult after all!
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FT8 is great for weak Es bubbles. Its a great tool for sure and I embrace it!  I just wish more stations were listen on 2M too and not glued to the screen. I'm betting its not the death of CW/SSB and the pendulum will swing back a little to the center when the shiny new wears off a bit.  I can see the wisdom of smaller stations sticking with FT8 as long as they can but that said you can't get blood out of a turnip either.  If FT8 is jammed up with strong signals the little guys have no choice but to play elsewhere like on CW or SSB.  Heck when the band is really open it doesn't take much of a station or antenna to be S9 or better.  There are plenty of guys calling CQ that can hear the little guys just fine and I worked a few hundred of them myself this past weekend. My neighbor up the river who just got on 6M (and totally fits the limited resources just out of college and on his own description) worked a couple hundred Qs on 6M with 50W and a loop up 20' mostly on SSB! When the band is really open even the little guys can have fun and rock out!  And yes he did work FT8 when the band was quieter but if he had stayed there he wouldn't have worked 10% of what he did. Rule #1 He gets it!  As does AC0RA who is still under 30 and renting yet has mounted national winning limited rover efforts over the past 5 years.
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Let you in a dirty little secret. Yes I do have some killer antennas but they are not always the ones pointed at you. I also have some old CC 5els (you know the crummy ones with gamma matches that people practically give away) up at 20 feet fixed on TX and FL.  Heck even a renter kid can afford one of these and put it up on temp pipe over the weekend.  When I'm low power 200W I'm only 3db louder than the 100W guys and I'm often using these small antennas and getting 20 over 9 reports when the band is open. Yeah K5TR is 40 over running a kW and big antennas down the band, but I'm still running rate!  So FT8 isn't the only game in town for the small guy when things heat up.
-------------------------------------------------------------     .  And any way you slice it the rules do limit you to one signal per band (though I thought they made a loophole for an APRS TX). So the Multiops won't stay on FT8 (I did see W2SZ on FT8) when 6M rips open like it does because THEY all get it too!  Yeah maybe some will stay in FT8 and endure the QRM.  But to call yourself a Contester you can't be a one mode wonder, ya got go where the Qs are!
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73 de Bob2 K2DRH