[Elecraft] FT8 - was "On Second Thought, I'll Take The Stairs"

[Nate Bargmann]

* On 2020 13 Jul 02:47 -0500, David Gilbert wrote:
> 
> No, those other posts didn't say that.

Perhaps not directly.  Preferences can always be strongly implied.

I think it is inarguable that years back ARRL publications had a bias
toward antennas that favored DX.  DX is fine and perhaps that did keep
more Novices in the ranks than would have otherwise stayed due to poor
antennas.  However, a low dipole antenna for the low bands was often
derided as a "cloud warmer" without mention of why such an antenna might
be useful.

Perhaps it was the steady diet of Kurt N. Sterba in the now discontinued
World Radio magazine as a Novice and Tech in the mid-80s that taught me
that a low antenna on the low HF bands had a valuable use.  I proved
this to myself right at 35 years ago when I became active on the Novice
bands and wanted to work the Kansas Slow Speed CW Net (QKS-SS).  The
vertical I had due to previously being convinced that I needed a DX
antenna worked miserably for such close-in work as checking into a
section net.  I strung up a dipole that was almost too low and I was
rewarded with very strong signals from within a few hundred miles on
80m.  Working the section net was easy with that antenna.

It wasn't until the quasi-military term Near Vertical Incident Skywave
(NVIS) entered the amateur radio vernacular in the early '90s that
"cloud warmers" became acceptable in literature printed in Newington.
Denizens of low band section nets knew the secret decades before.

Why do I use a K3 when over 90% of my operating time is spent on 75m
nets these days?  The QRM fighting features such as high and low cut
with appropriate filtering and something about its receiver where I
don't experience the fading other operators using other radios mention
frequently.  Perhaps it is my low doublet antenna that is overall a 3/4
wave on 75/80m that helps.

> I don't know why some hams insist on fabricating controversy where there is
> none.  It seems like the bulk of our American society is determined to be as
> tribal as possible.  Sorry times we live in.

There is a reason for that which is not apropos for this list.  Suffice
it to say that this has been the case for nearly the entirety of the
existence of amateur radio and likely in other endeavors for centuries.
A look at QST from the earliest decades show a bias toward traffic
handling and as the shortwave spectrum was discovered slowly turned
toward DXing.  In later decades Emmcomm has assumed a greater stature
while paradoxically traffic handling has almost been forgotten.

Fact is that people will always have a bias toward their own interests.

73, Nate

-- 

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