[VHFcontesting] Fwd: Digital and Q arrangement contesting (Stephen Hewlett)

[jon jones]

Steve brings up some interesting points, but regarding the comment about "older radios" --  they can be used on WSJT-X effectively with a little ingenuity. Lance, W7GJ discusses a way to use older radios on WSJT-X here:


http://www.bigskyspaces.com/w7gj/JT65.pdf


I used my old MFJ-9406 radio in the recent September VHF QSO Party and made numerous FT8 contacts with it during 6 Meter Sporadic-E opening Saturday evening.

 -- Jon N0JK

>K5QE, I read your post on Digital and Q Arrangement Contesting with interest. I couldn't agree more with your first four paragraphs ... they are very well written, logical, and make sense to me. It is the fifth, and final, paragraph that I'm not in complete agreement with. Subjective qualifiers such as "better", "happier", "problems", and whether or not something is "broken" are, like beauty, in the eyes of the beholder. Not all small stations (I am one of the very small stations) are happier nor are some of the middling to larger stations, as evidenced by some of the posts on this reflector. I suppose it is easy to write off contrary opinions in favor of legacy approaches to contesting as being held by Luddites who refuse to modernize and get with the program; but that ignores the subjective factors. As I mentioned in a previous post. some of us prefer to do the communicating ourselves rather than to by-and-large watch our computers work other computers, are sole contribution being a few mouse clicks here and there. People engage in VHF contests for different reasons and not everyone who does so is solely interested in maximizing their score and hoping to win something or place well. Some of us enjoy using our traditional operating skills w/o computer assistance and don't derive much joy out of the computer approach.

// And some of us enjoy using and working on older radios that are not easily, if at all, linked to computers. //

I personally think there should be separate categories in the big VHF contests for traditional modes and digital modes. One could use both modes and have a score in each mode, plus an overall score. As an analogy, chess tournaments now bar the use of computers (including cell phones) and those caught with them are forfeited and banned. There is a good reason for this as no chess player can successfully compete with modern chess playing software. There are separate chess tournaments held for chess computers/software and their handlers. 73, Steve N4NIV




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