Hi all,
I'm only a semi-serious contester, but I had good fun over the weekend
in the first WW-Digi contest. With a barefoot IC-7300 and dipole
antennas I scored a little over 66 k in the SOLP class.
In an attempt to see what software improvements might be desirable for
contesting, I've been accumulating post-contest comments posted by
others. For the record I'll append below a lightly edited random
sampling of these from various sources. They pretty well summarize my
own experience, as well.
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Surprisingly fun contest! Distance based QSOs are a big plus for West
Coast Ops. Maidenhead Locator Field scoring leveled the field for
participants worldwide.
24 hours is about right for contest length.
Band conditions as bad as they can get but FT4 provided a great
experience anyway.
Had a great time watching the Contest Online scoreboard!
With fixed time per QSO it really does pay to work DX.
Grid Field multipliers encouraged seeking out the DX when possible.
Most contacts on FT4 but moved to FT8 during the night. FT8 is probably
the better choice on 160.
Little activity beyond the first 4 kHz of a band’s contest segment.
My first foray into SO2R operations. Worked well!
Good decision to allow both FT8 and FT4: most QSOs with FT4, but many
high-point QSOs and multipliers with FT8.
First serious digital contest participitation. Used FT4 for rate, FT8 to
work the mults.
FT4 is fast and efficient, but causal operators are on their normal FT8
frequencies.
I really, really like this new contest because it is so different from
any other. Best feature are the three "sandboxes" to play in per band:
FT4, FT8 with contesters, and FT8 non-contesters.
Second best feature is the distance-weighted scoring. Putting these
together and there are a lot of strategic decisions to be made to
optimize your score. You can't just park on a freq and run stations all day.
This is a DX contest and not a rate contest, so I chose to emphasize FT8
over FT4 (about a 60/40 split). Most of my 4- and 5-pointers came from
FT-8.
WSJT-X and N1MM+ worked flawlessly.
WriteLog with DigiRite is impressive for FT contesting.
Optimum Strategies:
* Start with FT4, its faster.
* When rate falls, switch the even/odd time slots
* When the FT4 pools on the various bands get thin, move to the FT8.
Again, switch odd/even time slots when rate drops.
* At this point in the sunspot cycle, I saw no activity in the 21.090
and up FT8 window, just the 21.080 FT4 band.
* Use FT8 on 160m.
* When doing Search and Pounce, work the guys calling CQ WW, or CQ
TEST first using the NA VHF format. Then switch to the "normal"
(i.e. with SNR reports) format to work the non-contest types. I
lost 3 QSOs early on when I failed to do that and they responded
with only signal reports and never their grids.
* When things get slow in the wee small hours, go to the normal xx.074
type FT8 watering holes for mults using normal non-contest FT8
protocol.
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Additional comments will be welcome! Please post them here.
-- 73, Joe, K1JT
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