[VHFcontesting] An idea for the sprints.

[Ed Kucharski]

I'm gonna have to disagree with Chet. 4 hours seems like the perfect time period for a sprint. In fact, I ran out of time in the 2m sprint trying to work stations at 22:59. I consider a marathon a 48 hour HF contest or the ARRL VHF contests - not a 4 hour sprint. Perhaps, if some think 4 hours is too long, additional sprints can be devised (mini-sprints)? A separate 1 or 2 hour event that would be in addition to the sprints that already exist at a different time of year - similar to the CW Ops Test (CWT) that are of a 1 hour duration or Phone Fray a 30 minute contest on HF. IMHO FT8 is so slow I'm not sure 1 hour would be long enough on vhf+.
73,
Ed K3DNE
EM94

>     On 10/02/2020 9:24 AM Chet S < chetsubaccount at snet.net mailto:chetsubaccount at snet.net > wrote:
> 
> 
>     Hi Dave,
> 
>     Many contests suffer the tapering off of activity after a while. Monday night football, super-bowls, debates, Sunday afternoon sweepstakes doldrums, family time, etc.
>     And nowadays we are constantly pressed to add something "new and better" into our lives, and if we take more on, then there is less relax time for our other stuff.
> 
>     Maybe I'm old school but still highly enjoy hearing a weak signal, turning the beam to peak it, and trying to work it. Ahhh, that xyz station improvement I made this summer is working...or not...or pick a beam direction and go fishing to see what you can catch. Make your own decisions when and whether to call toward a population density direction or toward missing grids. SSB vs. FT8. To me that is the name of the game. I do not like the idea of pre-arranged contacts or arranging them in real time, that seems more like DXing than Contesting and not very satisfying.
> 
>     The sprints are a good fun break from the workday, but are 4 hours a bit much? It's supposed to be a sprint not a marathon, so maybe with shorter hours the station activity would be more consistent throughout.
> 
>     73,
>     Chet, N8RA
> 
> 
> 
>     -----Original Message-----
>     From: VHFcontesting < vhfcontesting-bounces+chetsubaccount=snet.net at contesting.com mailto:vhfcontesting-bounces+chetsubaccount=snet.net at contesting.com > On Behalf Of David Olean
>     Sent: Thursday, October 1, 2020 5:01 PM
>     To: (Radio) VHF Contesting < VHFcontesting at contesting.com mailto:VHFcontesting at contesting.com >; 222 MHz ACTIVITY < 222Activity at Groups.io mailto:222Activity at Groups.io >
>     Subject: [VHFcontesting] An idea for the sprints.
> 
>     It isn't much of an idea, more a suggestion, to not abandon the VHF sprints when activity dies down after the initial spurt of activity. I was not a big fan of opening up chat pages for coordination of contacts in VHF contests. My reasoning was that it favored stations that had good internet connectivity and penalized those that did not.
> 
>     That being said, we now have the ability to set up schedules for almost impossible contacts simply by coordinating on internet sites dedicated to such things. So why did everyone bail out after an hour or so on the
>     222 Sprint? The few diehards left were ones that I had already contacted. It would have been great to try some long haul tropo contacts on CW or even FT4/FT8 with stations that are normally not in range. Trying and failing at a 400+ mile QSO with a 25 watt station or trying a meteor scatter contact is much more agreeable than spending an hour calling CQ and tuning around on a almost empty band with no takers and no results. A few posts for skeds by several of the diehards also went unheeded towards the latter half of the sprint. The last hour, when things die down is the time to experiment and see what your station can do even if it is outside of your comfort zone. The worst that can happen is that the path does not work! Then, there is the problem of which chat page to monitor. Having poor connectivity makes monitoring a number of them impossible for many operators. On a good day, I might be able to cover two chat pages. We should set up a standardization for the sprints so
>     people are all looking at the same place.
> 
>     So next time, think twice about quitting early! Do something exciting instead.
> 
>     73
> 
>     Dave K1WHS
> 
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