[VHFcontesting] Where Have All the Multi's Gone?
Terry Price
terry at directivesystems.com
Fri Jan 29 14:02:55 EST 2021
Ed, et all,
There are several reasons for the decline, mostly age. K3YTL, W3SO and
others have lost folks that pretty well crippled them. Others had families
to raise, most folks don't know what a herculean effort it takes to put on
a multi unlimited effort. From 1994 until 2013 K8GP had a minimum of 8 core
members that showed up for every contest. The logistics of getting three
1985 school buses loaded with gear, food and operators was monumental. Just
look at the pix on K8GP.net and imagine trying to assemble this station in
just two days, operate for 1.8 days then tear down and be on the road home
by noon Monday!!! At that time, I had what I thought was a stable job but
in 2009, I was showed the door and there went 6wks of vacation every
year!!!
N8FMD stopped because their leader needed to care for his aging parents.
There were BIG multis in W9 land, K9HMB (SK), the AA9D group and W9ICE.
WB0DRL is another that went away. Some of it might have been a result of
folks thinking they could never beat W2SZ who has it honed to a sharp
point, but K8GP beat them 5 times, more than anyone. We did it with the
best operators, IMHO the beat location, Spruce Knob, and great equipment
plus a lot of effort from Owen, K3CB(SK), Gene, W3ZZ(SK), W4XP, K1RA, K3MM
and K1HTV along with satellite operators K1TR, KM3T, NW5E, W3CMP and many
others.
Andy, K1RA and I have transitioned to roving for many years until my new
place in FM09 is ready for K8GP MU again - I still have at least another 10
goods years in me!!! I've heard other MU's are going to come back.
What EVERYONE can do to help limited, unlimited, rovers and SO's, LEAN HOW
TO USE FT8 AND DON'T JUST SIT ON IT FOR HOURS!!!!! Casual operators will
not stop abusing FT8 until the core contesters stop working them. I'm sorry
and I'm not trying to be rude but 10 band stations like K1TEO, K1RZ, K8GP
and the rest invest THOUSANDS of dollars in their stations and if you can't
tell someone to QSY off 6m or 2m, why have it!?!?!
It's a pretty simple formula, use FT8 when SSB or CW won't work. If it's
meteors, use MSK144, eme use JTXX, normal Q's, SSB, FM or cw, it ain't
rocket science. I understand folks have issues with their HOA's, besides
hanging the bastards, all you can do is move or rove. An attic antenna is
fine to work 40 miles but if you are really interested in real VHF DXing,
get a rover, backpack to a mountaintop, pack up the wife and kids and get a
house where there are no lawn Nazi's!!!
I personally have been VHF contesting since 1979 and until my ashes are
spread over Spruce Knob, I will continue, the stuff I've worked and K8GP
has worked is nothing short of spectacular. Consider K8GP is the ONLY
multiop that EVER has achieved a 10 band VUCC, and we did it twice!!! And,
we also scored over 1 million points as a limited MU, that will never
happen again!!
So IMHO, the main reason is age for the decline but I fear FT8 will quickly
pass up old age!
73,
See you all in June!!
Terry - W8ZN
On Fri, Jan 29, 2021 at 8:45 AM Ed Kucharski <k3dne at comcast.net> wrote:
> Sorry, the chart did not retain its formatting. I was afraid of that -
> should have sent it to myself first to test.
> I tried an Excel file too but got an error message it was too big. I'll
> try to figure something out.
> 73,
> Ed K3DNE
>
> > On 01/29/2021 8:36 AM Ed Kucharski < k3dne at comcast.net mailto:
> k3dne at comcast.net > wrote:
> >
> >
> > I'm doing some research and digging for data about the recent thread
> associated with the effect FTx has had on traditional weak signal modes
> (ssb/cw).
> >
> > In the process I noticed a dramatic decrease in both Limited Multi
> and Unlimited Multi activity and scores (September VHF Contests) in the
> mid-late 2000's and again in 2015. The authors of the results write-ups
> noted this as well but didn't offer an explanation (unless I missed it).
> >
> > Why??? What am I missing? FT8 didn't begin till 2017 (according to
> that write-up). Remember, I only looked at the September results! 2015 was
> the first year allowing use of spotting in all categories (spots, chat
> rooms, email, text, phone, etc.).
> >
> > See my chart below. I had a little difficulty getting all the #'s if
> it wasn't mentioned in the write-up - scanning and manually counting
> results - I may have missed a few either way, scores were rounded.
> >
> > Thoughts?
> >
> > 73,
> > Ed K3DNE
> >
> > LM = Limited Multi
> > UM = Unlimited Multi
> >
> >
> >
> > Year
> >
> > #LM
> >
> > Average Score LM Top 10
> >
> > #UM
> >
> > # Total Multi (LM+UM)
> >
> > Average Score UM Top 10
> >
> > Cumulative Avg. Score Top 10 (LM+UM)
> >
> > 2000
> >
> > 53
> >
> > 246K
> >
> > 23
> >
> > 76
> >
> > 468K
> >
> > 714K
> >
> > 2005
> >
> > 33
> >
> > 296K
> >
> > 29
> >
> > 62
> >
> > 695K
> >
> > 991K
> >
> > 2010
> >
> > 23
> >
> > 78K
> >
> > 26
> >
> > 49
> >
> > 277K
> >
> > 355K
> >
> > 2014
> >
> > 41
> >
> > 97K
> >
> > 40
> >
> > 81
> >
> > 152K
> >
> > 249K
> >
> > 2015
> >
> > 17
> >
> > 75K
> >
> > 14
> >
> > 31
> >
> > 97K
> >
> > 172K
> >
> > 2017
> >
> > 21
> >
> > 54K
> >
> > 15
> >
> > 36
> >
> > 83K
> >
> > 137K
> >
> > 2018
> >
> > 22
> >
> > 45K
> >
> > 15
> >
> > 37
> >
> > 62K
> >
> > 107K
> >
> > 2019
> >
> > 22
> >
> > 54K
> >
> > 17
> >
> > 39
> >
> > 60K
> >
> > 114K
> >
> > 2020*
> >
> > 21
> >
> > 48K
> >
> > 12
> >
> > 33
> >
> > 57K
> >
> > 105K
> >
> > *2020 results possibly affected by COVID-19
> > _______________________________________________
> > VHFcontesting mailing list
> > VHFcontesting at contesting.com mailto:VHFcontesting at contesting.com
> > http://lists.contesting.com/mailman/listinfo/vhfcontesting
> >
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