[VHFcontesting] [NEWSVHF] Here's a Proposed Solution for Digital/Analog Operating

[Duane - N9DG]

Perhaps it is time to rethink the radio gear choices used within the shack, and to adopt newer radio technologies that allow for simultaneous multi-modes, and frequencies of operation at the same time - all of the time. There are readily available SDR based radios when paired with transverters that will achieve that handily. And the availability of those kinds of radios off the shelf from existing amateur gear manufacturers have been around for well over decade at this point, actually closer two decades already. But I'll let you all in on a big secret, they are not being made by any of the "Big 3".
It is long past time to move on from clinging to radios for brand loyalty or other reasons that more or less look and work the exact same way that they have going back to prior to at least 1970. And as part of that also to learn the new skills that are required to use radios which allow for simultaneous operation across multiple modes, and multiple frequencies in a multi-tasking way. With a bit of upfront re-think, it actually isn't hard at all to learn how to do that. The one mode, one signal at a time sequentially approach to operating just isn't going to cut it anymore.
So no amount of contest rules fiddling and tweaking to accommodate mode Balkanization will ever overcome the inherent limitations of those legacy concept one mode, one signal at a time radio boxes in today's world where the bands are now sparsely populated with a mix of audible only, and digital data type modes all occurring at the same time. You really do need to have an ability "just do them all at the same time with one radio", the technology does already exist, and it is only marginally more costly.
The signal make up and content on the bands today just isn't the same as it was in the years prior to Y2K. The declines in V/UHF analog mode operating actually pre-dates FT8 et al by at least 2 decades.
Once what was, can now never be.