[NLRS] FM in January Contest

[Dr. Gerald N. Johnson]

The Story County Iowa EC made an effort to test a hospital radio 
installation, planning on lots of activity to check its simplex range. 
He'd noticed an announcement of the FM operating class in the section 
newsletter. He made two contacts and was very much underwhelmed. One 
rover and one fixed station. I think there was very little publicity in 
the general ham community, just in our weak signal community where we 
can work 5 to ten times the distance and thus grids on SSB or CW and 
like UC says it takes a whole separate antenna for good FM coverage. 
Separate rig maybe or maybe not, probably a preamp and class power limit 
PA along with a vertically polarized EME array would make a dent, but 
ONLY if FM operators got off the repeaters and went simplex, which has 
so little activity, I don't bother looking for it now that a few older 
timers that occupied .52 in Iowa have passed away.

That hospital station uses a D710 with the remote station hardware on a 
private ethernet so the RF section is on the roof while the operating 
position can be on the ground floor in several locations. Saves the RF 
loss of a few hundred feet of coax and the high cost of good coax with 
an appropriate environmental rating and since the hospital had spare 
ethernet cable in place it was simple to set up. Almost may not meet the 
rules about a remotely operated station for contests though. Maybe some 
of the rules are too specific and had only the intent of thwarting the 
super moneyed stations which hasn't been a benefit to ham radio contesting.

Having been on FM almost continuously since 1959 I observe that its more 
of a social media, a group rag chew than individual contacts and not 
attuned to Grid, QSL, 73 quick contacts. We could emulate some of the 
rag chews at greater distances on SSB, but we are doing more by fingers 
without the need for licensed RF. Indeed the first group of FMers I 
joined in St. Louis MO back then would have refused to talk to a station 
that tried to get contest exchanges. It was a clique and some welcomed 
the occasional newcomer better if that newbie (not a word then) tried to 
drink the older timers under the table. Where one did not call CQ, but 
sometimes all it took to start a conversation was to hit the PTT 
(simplex before the days of repeaters) a couple times, or at the most to 
say, "Anybody here?" With maybe 8 or 10 participants, call signs were 
not much needed for identification.

With the advent of good repeaters, many an FM station is very marginal, 
with indoor antennas, sometimes indoor basement antennas and many an FM 
operator has little knowledge of propagation or even how it works. I 
heard one on my scanner the other night saying he could noy tell the 
difference in the signal strength back from a repeater whether he ran 
minimum or full power. Passing the test by memorizing 50 questions 
didn't lead to understanding.

We can increase contest scores with FM, with lots of organization, and 
local publicity mostly to the advantage of the station willing to 
arrange for the big vertically polarized array and substantial power and 
preamps. Its been done occasionally in the big apple, as I recall it 
took months of preparation to get the FMers off the repeaters and 
obviously hasn't automatically repeated.

Perhaps the prohibition of VHF contest QSOs via any repeater needs to be 
relaxed since the overwhelming majority of normal FM activity these days 
is only via repeaters. How would that affect traditional modes, not 
much, the few linear repeaters haven't survived to my knowledge, and 
would open up more amateur satellite possibilities. The ARRL 
explanations of FM leave out calling CQ though its perfectly legitimate 
while their ruse is "K0CQ monitoring." In times past when I did hear a 
CQ on a local repeater I answered and congratulated the station making 
the call of thinking more traditional ham than the ARRL version of FM. 
The single channel operation typical 40 and more years ago made the 
"calling anybody" meaning of CQ irrelevant. But that doesn't mean its 
ever been WRONG, just not traditional. The stations listening either 
heard the caller and were willing to talk or didn't. No need for an 
extended CQ call to catch their attention as they dialed because with a 
single frequency receiver crystal controlled they weren't tuning.

The fundamental problem with the FM contesting concept is that FM range 
is inherently limited by the wide receiver bandwidth and the hard 
threshold for quieting that makes the weakest copyable signal at least 
20 dB weaker on SSB than on FM. Add to that the common use of low or no 
gain vertical antennas that don't seem to get over the horizon as good 
as horizontal and while the local crowds on FM can be substantial the DX 
possibilities are very limited. I say the open band DX on FM (save for 
the occasional Es) is at the local QRM range on SSB on 2m. E.g. contacts 
at 100 miles. But lately detectable activity in the Cedar Rapids area 
has mostly vanished, so I've not noticed that QRM source.

I think the FM activity was a bust because it didn't get made known to 
the FM operators because one might have interpreted the rule against 
soliciting contacts by repeater as precluding getting on the repeaters 
and repeater nets to advertise the contest activity. Is that a rule out 
of line with the desire for more contest activity?

FM activity has been a valid entry in VHF contests for as long as there 
has been FM, just when repeaters came along contacts through repeaters 
have been not allowed as contest entries. Many of my 70s era contest 
logs included in the comments, "No FM contacts." That may hint of some 
bias here.

73, Jerry, K0CQ

On 1/22/2013 11:34 AM, w0zq at aol.com wrote:
>
>
>
> My involvement in this weekends contest was minor as I just got on a few times over both days.  A brief report will follow.
>
> Question for NLRS land - Did anyone notice increased FM activity due to the new FM-only operating class?   Were there some contacts being made on 146.55, 58, etc?
>
> 73, Jon
> W0ZQ
>