[VHFcontesting] FT8?- tarnation!

[Detrick Merz]

"Now an enterprising club could take advantage of the current situation
and use it as an opportunity..."

Or any single op could do the same? Evolve or die, I think, just like it
has always been. I bet there are plenty of folks out there enjoying the
heck out of themselves and figuring out how to take advantage of the
current state of things. I know these discussions over the past few days
have given me some ideas on how to possibly improve my score next time I
can make it out. Those improvement ideas don't stem from avoiding any
particular mode, but rather trying to reap rewards from whatever the
environment is presenting to me.

I think it was John, KM4KMU, who had perhaps the most insightful advice.
Look at the rules, look at the classes, see if there's a place where you
can carve out a niche for yourself. He certainly did that, taking full
advantage of the FM class, making it his own, and inspiring a whole heap of
people along the way.

-detrick
K4IZ


On Wed, Jan 20, 2021, 14:02 <alex at kr1st.com> wrote:

> I think the best approach is a separate contest for digital modes. It's
> done on HF, and it's done in other countries. This is not terribly
> difficult.
>
> The points per mode approach is doomed to fail I'm afraid. That may be a
> solution if there would be an overall lack of activity. Then you can
> make a contest more attractive by allowing to work the same station on a
> different mode. However, in the areas where the complaints are the
> loudest, there is no lack of activity. In fact, the level of activity is
> sufficiently high on FT8 to warrant its own contest, and disallow non
> burst type digital modes in the "regular" contest.
>
> By doing nothing, or by trying to somehow change the rules of the
> current contest to make it more attractive to operate on other modes and
> bands, I think you can be assured that the VHF contests will turn into
> digital mode contests. I'm OK with that if that happens, but I'd rather
> operate both a traditional _and_ a digital mode contest.
>
> Now an enterprising club could take advantage of the current situation
> and use it as an opportunity to organize a digital mode contest within
> the current contests...
>
> 73,
> --Alex KR1ST
>
> On 2021-01-20 10:57, Sean Waite wrote:
>
> > Personally I don't think that's another contest, and that we need to
> > find a
> > way to co-exist inside the same contest. I'm not sure of the best way
> > to do
> > that. We have 3 contests in a year - we should try a different approach
> > on
> > each one (and yes, I realize there are weather and band conditions that
> > change these contests) and see what approaches work well and which
> > don't.
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