[NLRS] VHF Contest results K0DAS, N0LNO, KC0SKM

Wed Jun 13 15:49:19 EDT 2018

The K0BBC/R team incorporated digital (as we did as W0ZF/R last year),
but it's a huge pain to do so as a rover.  Once things open up, we
generally tried to switch to CW or SSB, where the rates could go a bit
higher---and we hope that fixed stations will also adopt this
practice.  FT8 is great when conditions are marginal, but when the
band is open and stations are loud it's much slower than necessary.

The main problem with operating digital (primarily FT8) as a rover is
that our callsign becomes too long, and it makes the auto-sequencing
go haywire.  We struggled with this on MSK144 as well last year, and
I'm sure would have encountered the same issues there this year had we
been set up early enough to run MS.

For instance a QSO may look like this:
CQ K0BBC/R EN14
K0BBC K0DAS EN52
DE K0BBC/R R EN14
K0BBC K0DAS RRR
DE K0BBC/R 73
K0BBC K0DAS 73
[log, repeat]

If only one station calls us on our frequency at a time, that's okay.
Once several stations start trying to work us, we end up playing the
game of "who thinks they're working us."  This leads to a
fox-and-hound-like situation where two stations (or more) may think
we're working them, but it's never clear from our automatic messages
who we're coming back to.  If they both complete the exchange as
expected, we would log both---but usually someone would get a little
concerned and make sure that we are coming back to them specifically.
We then had to go back and manually send either message 1 or message
2, which then threw off the rest of the sequencing.

We attempted to use the "full callsign only in tx5" button, but it
didn't seem to make any difference.  Hopefully this is something that
can be fixed for the July VHF contest, otherwise we'll fall back to
using K0BBC as the callsign and setting message 5 manually to DE
K0BBC/R 73.

73,
  Bill
AE0EE

On Wed, Jun 13, 2018 at 11:59 AM, Rich <richn0hjz at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
> I don’t think it was a digital contest. I was only on for about two hours but managed over 200 Qs on 6M.
>
> Rich N0HJZ. EN34
>
> Sent from my iPhone
>
>> On Jun 13, 2018, at 11:00 AM, Gregg Lind <gregg at thelinds.net> wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>> I had an opportunity to work at a fixed site (K0DAS) this past contest (
>> which now I have done the past two June contests). Had a great time, Rod
>> has 1000w on 2m and then also 600w on 6 meters. We had a phone/CW station
>> with 222,432,2 setup... Rod/Bill (N0LNO) used the rover rack in the house,
>> and then a 2 meter 1000w amp... in the house. I was brought over for tech
>> support for the FT8 and help get Rod PC working with the USB dongle.
>>
>> Most of the activity was on 6m and FT8 - what a blast, but for me as a
>> rover (or at least my heart is there). I am starting to question my
>> approach to June contest.   I am wondering how this is going to affect me
>> and my rover setup?  Was the activity on SSB this contest down?
>>
>> I tried to contact the rovers via IM, email etc to help them get a few q's
>> from us....if we could help... Even track Mel on APRS...   My last rover
>> with Wyatt to Nebraska we had more contacts on FT8/MSK144 on the go than I
>> would have for an entire contest on SSB....
>>
>> Do rovers need to incorporate digital modes ....  Was wondering how rovers
>> faired this June as it looks like it became a 6 meter FT8 contest?
>>
>> Here was our fixed station score. with 144, 222, and 432 as SSB contacts.
>>
>> Band   Q’s.    Mults
>> 50.      196.     100
>> 144.      24.        15
>> 222.       6.           4
>> 432.       6.           4
>>
>> 123 X 244 = 30,013 score
>>
>> We apparently did work a VUCC on six meters
>>
>> KC0SKM
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