CONTESTING
Plus: FT8 (and FT4) Roundup, ARRL 160-Meter Contest, ARRL 10-Meter Contest, Stew Perry Topband Distance Challenge, ARRL RTTY Roundup
An exciting infusion of new blood into contesting is happening, due in major part to the new WSJT-X FT4 and FT8 modes. This is evidenced clearly by the jump in participation in last January’s ARRL RTTY Roundup, the number of FT8-only logs, and comments made by many of the participants.
Participation in last year’s new “FT8 Roundup” in December also was very significant, with over 1,250 logs submitted. Similarly, in August over 1,300 logs were submitted to the brand-new Worldwide Digi DX Contest. By comparison, the CQ World Wide DX CW contest exceeded 1300 logs only in 1965, after 18 consecutive years. Similarly, the CQWW DX Phone weekend went above 1300 logs for the first time in 1968, its 21st year. This instant level of participation is impressive even considering that manual dupe-checking and mailing paper logs was significantly more burdensome than today’s electronic log instant dupe checks and log submission over the Internet.
At the end of this column, we consider whether this new interest can best be harnessed within existing contests, or if new contests devoted specifically to FT8 and FT4 the way to proceed. Currently we have both, and FT8/FT4 participation is significant whenever they are permitted modes. The same interest is even more pronounced in the VHF and UHF contests.
As mentioned last month, December is YOTA month. Younger operators – generally defined as those below the age of 26 – will activate stations with “YOTA” callsigns. This activity originated in, and is supported by, IARU Region 1 (Europe, Africa and the Middle East). But it is spreading to the International Amateur Radio Union’s Regions 2 (the Americas) and 3 (Asia/Pacific) as well. Make an effort to drop by
