As it turns out, this contest weekend & the Monday-after was ALL about contest
Ethics in Radiosport and Lighthouses lacking radios. Let's begin with the Lighthouses.
Unfortunately, virtually EVERY Lighthouse weekend, I hear NO (count-em) NO Lighthouses
on the air - Wassup with that? To "solve" this problem, in 2012 I created my OWN Lighthouse operating event using the callsign W6L (L = Lighthouse).
While I could hear NO Lighthouse operations, at least at 04:00z I COULD hear Hawaii (KH6) in the Hawaiian QSO Party (HQP) and Ohio Saturday morning at 16:00z. The goal was to play around in both events - AFTER giving a ZOOM presentation to the Amateur Radio Club of Alameda (ARCA).
When the DO You QRL presentation is edited out of the overall meeting video, I will post it in the WQ6X YouTube channel along with the other presentations I have made for ARCA meetings.
Past ARCA presentations include
(June 2019 meeting)
(March 2020 meeting)
Other videos in the WQ6X Channel document several of the operations I have been a part of with the crew at NX6T.
There are also videos of WQ6X/WP2 running pileups (on Cw & Ssb) during the hours "around" the ARRL RTTY RU contest - for which we took 1st-place for DX. ([CLICK HERE] to read about that.)
As it turns out, the subject of Ethics in radio was VERY relevant to this weekend's state QSO Parties; beginning with the Ohio QSP Party (OQP). During this event, an Ohio station (who shall for now remain Call-less) was technically violating "exchange" protocol by sending only LAKE county,
omitting the signal report, which is required as part of the exchange.
Now, while I am in favor of eliminating the sending of worthless 5-9 & 5-9-9 reports (I recently wrote
a Blog about this), if the contest rules dictate we send it, whether we like it or not, that is what we do. If I can get away with NoT sending the report and yet YOU are required to send it, then I have an unfair advantage, because theoretically, I can make more QSOs per hour by sending a shorter exchange. In checking the 3830 Scores for the Ohio QSO Party, while this station hardly
reported an overall 1st-place, He/She might be claiming a top score for Lake county.
The Hawaiian QSO party presented us with an altogether different situation.
In past HQP events (most notably 2012 / 2013), WQ6X garnered Cw-Only
2nd-place certificates. While I skimmed this year's contest rules, I failed to take
notice of the fact that there are no longer any separate Cw/Ssb/Mixed categories,
only ONE SOAB (Single-OP All Band) category.
Evidently somewhere along the line, FT8 QSOs have been allowed as part of the contest.
If there are more FT8 stations than Cw/Ssb combined, then by default were are pre-empted
by a mode which should (by all rights) have its OWN category.
This is no different than my BEEF that SO2R stations should be in a category of their own;
with SO2R I am in competition with people who have more money and can therefore purchase
a more competitive station. Let FT8 and SO2R modes continue - I have no problem with that.
However I should not have to compete with them. My complaint about this to the HQP contest coordinator brought about the following reply:
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FTx has been part of HQP for at least four years, maybe longer. It was there before I took over the management. So, it isn't anything new. One of the things that I did was to simplify the rules and that
meant eliminating the single mode categories. This is more of an operating event rather than a contest
and as such I was hoping to stretch the limited KH6 stations to do more rather than less.
That said, some of us (me included) take the contest view seriously.
You're right about FTx being more popular than CW or SSB. Nothing new about that either. Last year NH6Y won the HI side SOHP category with 100% FT8. So your fears are confirmed. However, FT still has significant problems when used by QSO Parties. That is, FT can't exchange state info. That's why I tried getting everyone to use the Field Day exchange. WSJT is so hamstrung that this turned into a complete fiasco. I'm not sure how to go from here next year.
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In my mind, the fact that FT-8 can't exchange STATE info makes it incompatible with the QSO party format, whether it is a contest or not. The tipoff that something is incompatible is having to use the format from another contest in an attempt to shoe-horn it into an already existing exchange format.
The mode should ADAPT to the Event; the Event should NoT have to adapt to the mode.
Recognizing that running Cw only would not be enough I decided it was necessary to put some Ssb QSOs into the HQP log to have any chance at all. Unfortunately, the internet connection in Fallbrook was SO unstable, attempting to record Voice Keyer memories in the remote K3 remotely ended up with all the memories full of dropouts - completely unacceptable.
I had stored a number of .Wav files in the WQ6X folder on STN-1. Properly configuring the N1MM+ F-Keys, the F2 (EXCHG) and F4 (WQ6X) keys were pointed to their respective .Wav files allowing
me to Search & Pounce on Ssb.
2 hours of the HQP there was really no other choice in the matter - not enough Hawaiian stations were participating in their own contest. The reward for this all this effort on Cw was a WHOPPING
4 more QSOs added to the Log.
After ALL that effort, it didn't make a difference anyway and technically was a waste of my time/effort; this is an operating event, not a contest - remember that. Therefore if it is not a contest, why issue any certificates at all? (Instead, how about making participation certificates available to anyone who submits a log.)
DiD YOU work the HQP and/or OQP QSO Parties?
If NoT WHY Knot?
For you Hawaiians and Ohioans is WQ6X in YOUR Log?
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