[VHFcontesting] FT8 contest mode incompatibly

[Harry Blakeman]

For the last 3 contests I've turned off JTDX and turned on WSJTX.

Yesterday mostly a problem with non A, K, and W calls who were sending AGN
AGN or SIG RPT. I also started ignoring those stations who didn't send TEST
except for 1 or two whose grid I needed. Signals were 20/9 most of the
weekend. Who needs a signal rpt.

As you suggested Jay an easy way to switch in and out of CM would eliminate
most of the problem, but there will always be those who don't get it no
matter what.

73, Harry, W0BL

On Mon, Jul 22, 2019, 09:36 Jay RM <w9rm at calmesapartners.com> wrote:

> Anyone seriously operating this weekends contest and using FT8 probably had
> this happen.
>
> You're cruising .313 looking for those new mults or whatever, you see
> someone CQing WITHOUT the word TEST in the CQ message and you instinctively
> know they're not in contest mode.  No worries, you think.  The WSJTX
> boffins have tuned the program to compensate for the difference in exchange
> and you know autosequence will seamlessly pull you through.  You call and,
> sure enough, back comes the 'funny little number' exchange.  You reply with
> a NA contest mode exchange (because you're contesting, right ?) and....
> back comes a repeat - no autosequence.  What ??  OK, maybe I got QRMed.
> Try again, and same thing.  You can't progress to the finish.
>
> What you do now is left to the individual.  What I did was terminate the Q
> and moved on.  You might have fiddled with the setup to switch out of
> contest mode.  Whatever... the Q was either made or not.
>
> What this did, other then temporarily piss me off and cause name calling
> that nobody heard but me and the shack spiders, was confused me.  HOW could
> this happen....the boffins....they fixed this.  Was the other guy manually
> interfering with autosequence ?  Was the other guy that insistent on his
> funny number ?  I started ignoring those obviously not in contest mode.
>
> This morning, after reading a soapbox comment on 3830, it finally hit
> me.... (I'm pretty focused on operating during the 'test).  It's.....The
> Clones !!  Those knock-offs of WSJT - JTDX, MHSV !  THEY don't have contest
> mode !   They can't autosequence past TX2.  So, what to do about this
> incompatibly ?  It's pretty obvious the clones aren't going to add CM if
> they haven't already and there are those contest haters that wouldn't use
> it anyway, but still insist on trying to WORK contesters.
>
> I'm thinking maybe the solution is to add some kind of 'quick button'
> behavior to WSJTX that drops the program out of contest mode for just one Q
> and resets back into CM after the 73 (or something).  Does anyone have
> another idea ?  If a number of high level contesters presented such a
> request maybe the WSJT powers would respond.  Or, maybe you think it's a
> non-issue....or maybe a quick work around all ready exists that doesn't
> require a guy to drop in and change his setup and I'm just clueless ?
>
> -W9RM
>
>
>
> Keith Morehouse
> via MotoG
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