[VHFcontesting] Suggestion for the ARRL June VHF contest

[George Fremin III]

On Wed, Oct 26, 2022 at 08:34:30PM -0400, Bob, W3IDT wrote:
> I have a long standing proposal before the ARRL Contest Advisory
> Committee (CAC) for THREE contacts per station - CW, VOICE(ssb, am,
> fm), ANY DIGITAL -  on 6m and 2m, and TWO contacts per station -
> ANALOG, DIGITAL - on the higher bands.

This would just be a mess.

I do not enjoy doing digial contests.

The VHF contests have become digital contests.  Indeed the VHF bands
are turning into digial only bands for a lot of activity.

I have given up on this.  I decided last year to not do any digital
modes in the VHF contests that I operate in as a single op.

An analog only category was added this year - and as a result I
entered that category.  I would have been analog only even without
that category.  I guess having this category gives me a path to
"winning" but that is not why I do these contests.  I live in the
middle of Texas - I often wonder why I do any of these VHF/UHF bands -
but I do becasue I find them interesting.

EU VHF contests do not allow digital modes - never had - they do not
have this issue in their contests.  I dont think they allow EME either
in their non-EME contests.  I think these are good things.  I also do
not think we can put this back in the bottle for ARRL VHF contests.

So be it. 

I can still have fun. 

One thing I do worry about is that the activity is very fragmented on
the VHF bands.  And this is even worse in areas with light activity.
Stations are on:

EME
MSK
FT8
CW/SSB

In the past all the activity was on 144.200 +/_ nothing - and so the 
casual / IC9700 owning / new ham with a vertical had a chance of 
hearing and working someone on SSB.  Now - they might not hear anyone
during the times they try to check out the weak signal VHF bands. 
Will they come back?  Likley not. 

And yes, I know they should not use a vertical etc.  

But, it is what it is.

We need the new VHF weak signal blood - we are not getting it.

We no longer have the days of the Techs that can't/won't do 13 wpm code 
to get their general that were a captive audiance. 

Things change. 

But I do not think some complicated points system is the answer. 

Rules changes are easy to propose. In my experiance folks that suggest
changes do not spend a lot of time thinking about how those rules will
affect operating patterns.  It is usually much more complicated than
it seems on the surface.  Changes that seem small will affect
beahavior patterns in ways that are not expected.

As N2NC points out - making close in contacts become worth so much
that maybe it makes more sense to focus on those in order to 'win' the
contest.  Why waste time on some hard digital contact when you can get
more points for working some loud locals on FM?

There are likely many more recactions to the proposed points changes
than you can think of and might not become obvious until the rules are
changed and several years go by.

Be careful what you wish for. 


--
George Fremin III
K5TR