[NLRS] Digital and the January VHF Expanded Article

[Jon Platt]

Hello NLRS land
KK6MC, James Duffey, wrote an excellent January VHF expanded article that can be found on the Leagues website at <https://contests.arrl.org/ContestResults/2021/Jan-VHF-2021-FinalFullResults.pdf>.  The article itself is about 16 pages longs so make sure you have a cup of coffee or a beer in hand to read it.  I found two aspects of the article to be of interest.  First, because the January contest is not dominated by 6m Es like June is, the contest has a heavy regional character to it.  It is interesting to see how other VHFers are having fun in other areas of the county while we battle cold and snow.  We tend to get a bit myopic in our vision as to what a VHF contest is and reading Jim's article reminds me of the larger World we have in VHF.  Second, his article touches on the usage and impact of digital modes in an observational way along with some data looking at both the positives and negatives.  His "Things to do to counteract the potential negative aspects associated with the use of digital modes:" that starts on page 13 makes sense to me.   As your Dakota Div CAC representative, I do plan on being at Aurora'21 this coming Saturday if you want to discuss.  In the meantime, if you have not already, please take a look at Jim's excellent contest write up.
73, JonW0ZQ