[ILQSO] W9KVR/W9GRS IROQ & FT4/8

[Simpson, Troy]

Good Morning All!

The tentative plan is to operate either under our school call *W9GRS *or my
home call *W9KVR *from Iroquois County Wildlife Area (US-4132) again this
year.  If this we cannot do that, I will operate from the home QTH also
located in Iroquois County.

My two-cents on FT4/FT8 operations...
We have utilized it from the school station, experimenting with ways to
exchange necessary information for contacts, in particular School Club
Round-up (SCR).  We have had some rather opinionated conversations within
that group's list-serve, mainly from those that believe it should not be
used for making SCR contacts, as the proper exchange cannot be made (this
is an entirely other issue for another platform to discuss).

I am neutral in terms of whether or not it should be an acceptable mode for
ILQP, but a proper exchange can be made manually using customized macros.
You are limited in the number of characters that can be sent, so you may
have to send multiple exchanges.  It is cumbersome, but can be done.  The
issue that one runs into is that other station also must have the proper
exchange.  Rarely are other stations willing or able to conform to those
parameters without planning intentionally to do so for a particular
contest.  From a contest standpoint, it really isn't an efficient method of
making contacts with the current ILQP exchange, in particular if you are
operating from county lines.  With the overlapping grids with states, the
grid square coordinates are little help in determining state QTH (ie EN60
can be IL or IN).  Also, even with a single county, you it will take
upwards of 75 seconds to complete a single FT8 QSO, 60 seconds for FT4.

So, in a nutshell, is it possible, yes...are they best modes for ILQP,
probably not.

Just my thoughts to fill your minds, hi hi.

Looking forward to hearing you all in a month or so!

73 from the Flatlands of Illinois!

-Troy W9KVR / W9GRS



-- 
Troy J. Simpson

NAGT 2016 Central Section OESTA
Science Instructor - Watseka Jr. High School
Science Olympiad Team Head Coach / Science Club Sponsor
Head Coach Girls Track & Field - Watseka Community High School
Twitter:  @GRS_Science
Watseka, IL