Hi Dave,
Thanks for your continued interest.
Yes, WFD has significant participation -- a bit less than 1/10 of that
in the other non-contest that has a formatted exchange built into the
WSJT-X 77-bit structured messages.
I'm sorry if I misled you into thinking this was simply a matter of some
numbers that could be looked up. Our "To Do" priorities currently lies
elsewhere -- particularly with the new weak-signal modes introduced with
WSJT-X 2.3.0 and WSJT-X 2.4.0-rc1.
-- 73, Joe, K1JT
On 2/19/2021 12:21 PM, Dave Slotter, W3DJS wrote:
Joe:
I took your message as a challenge to look up where the activity is
definitively. From the notes below which I just compiled, it seems that
there is a "low" of *151* logs received by the 2020 FT8 VHF-UHF EU
contest up to a high of *2,349* logs received by the ARRL 2021 RTTY
Roundup. By comparison, the Winter Field Day falls in the middle with
*1,562* participant logs received. Next, WW-Digi, which you said, "The
WW-Digi contest is an even bigger event", was only marginally larger
with 1,690 logs received. And ARRL 2020 Field Day is in a class by
itself with an order of magnitude more entries -- and which messes up
the curve...
image.png
ARRL 2021 January VHF Contest: *1,196* logs received (source:
https://contests.arrl.org/logsreceived.php
<https://contests.arrl.org/logsreceived.php>and selected "2021 ARRL
January VHF Contest in menu")
ARRL 2020 June VHF Contest: *Indeterminate* -- no menu item is
available to select
ARRL 2021 RTTY Roundup: *2,349* logs received (source
https://contests.arrl.org/logsreceived.php?cn=rttyru
<https://contests.arrl.org/logsreceived.php?cn=rttyru>)
2020 FT8 VHF-UHF EU Contest: *151* logs received (source:
https://ft8activity.eu/index.php/en/received-log-s/144-mhz-rcvd-logs
<https://ft8activity.eu/index.php/en/received-log-s/144-mhz-rcvd-logs>)
If this is the wrong source, then my apologies. Please direct me to
the correct source.
Winter Field Day: *1,562* logs received (source
https://winterfieldday.com/wfd-2020
<https://winterfieldday.com/wfd-2020> -- select Home, Outdoors and
Indoors to tally the contents of Column "Category" )
2020 WW-Digi: *1,690* logs received (source:
https://ww-digi.com/results/2020-ww-digi_results-article.pdf
<https://ww-digi.com/results/2020-ww-digi_results-article.pdf>)
ARRL 2020 Field Day: almost *19,000* participants reported (source
/QST/ Dec. 2020)
Winter Field Day is all-inclusive of every state, so it is not
comparable to the argument you made about it would not be manageable to
support 50 state QSO parties. WFD and QSO parties are apples and oranges
and are not easily comparable.
Now that I have demonstrated through research that the level of
involvement of Winter Field Day is comparable to the other contests that
WSJT-X already supports, would you please reconsider supporting WFD with
a future release of WSJT-X?
Thank you for your consideration.
--
Dave Slotter, W3DJS <https://www.qrz.com/db/W3DJS>
On Fri, Feb 19, 2021 at 11:17 AM Joe Taylor <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
Hi Dave,
The simple answer is that when designing our 77-bit message payload we
chose to implement support for a few contests particularly relevant to
the WSJT-X modes.
WSJT and its sister programs were motivated for VHF/UHF weak-signal
work
and have had a strong VHF+ influence from the beginning. Hence the
support for NA and EU VHF contests.
We supported an exchange for the ARRL RTTY Roundup because it's a big
event and that has always encouraged QSOs using any digital mode.
The WW-Digi contest is an even bigger event, and its rules were
designed
to use the same exchange format as the NA VHF contest.
ARRL Field Day is not a contest, but involves many thousands of NA hams
every year. We were encouraged to include its straightforward exchange
as a possibility, and that has turned out to be a good idea.
As it turns out, supporting EU VHF contests has not been very fruitful.
I believe it's not much used.
I've been a ham for 67 years. To be honest, I had never heard of
Winter
Field Day until a year or so ago. As far as I am aware, it attracts no
more than a few hundred entrants. (I could easily be wrong.) Many
State QSO parties attract that many entries, or perhaps more. The
tightly structured source encoding in the WSJT-X modes can't possibly
accommodate all of the special exchanges for such events.
Finally, the WFD rules make it clear that the sponsors have little
interest in modes than can't be helpful for EmComm purposes.
-- 73, Joe, K1JT
On 2/19/2021 10:09 AM, Dave Slotter, W3DJS wrote:
> Bill:
>
> I decided to review the mailing list for prior discussions of Winter
> Field Day (WFD) before writing this message.
>
> I was wondering why WFD was not supported by WSJT-X and it
appears from
> a message you apparently wrote on November 20, 2018 that:
>
> the field day class is packed into 3 bits so only eight different
> classes are supported. We cannot support three new class
letters on
> top of the existing six. It could be possible by agreement to
use,
> say 'a', 'B', and 'C' to represent 'I', 'O', and 'H' since
Winter FD
> does not use any of the normal FD classes.
>
>
> Going to the Winter Field Day Rules, page 7, it says:
>
> FT8/FT4 Notes: WFD has always had an Ecomm emphasis, even
back when
> SPAR sponsored it.. We waited for FT8 2.0, and FT4 hoping
they would
> be more flexible, but were disappointed that the new release
would
> NOT do the WFD Exchange as it currently stands. That alone
rules out
> using FT8/FT4 for WFD. Also, its ability to carry any emergency
> message is near nil... try sending "SOS - HMS TITANIC - HIT ICE -
> SINKING - 82.566N 34.713W". Almost any other mode can send
that (or
> the WFD Exchange). Getting a message through bad conditions is
> great.. but getting only a grid square and a signal report is
hardly
> a message of value to Ecomms. /*When FT8 can do the WFD exchange
> verbatim, it'll become part of WFD. That has been the
consensus of
> the WFDA board for some time... We are not anti-FT8. The ARRL did
> not change any rules in its contests to allow FT8... FT8
developers
> changed what it could send to fit a few ARRL contest
exchanges. */
>
>
> (my emphasis added)
>
> So, have you and Joe given any further consideration to providing
for
> Winter Field Day Exchanges in WSJT-X? It seems to me, that since
WSJT-X
> already supports the following contests, then what is the harm /
> difficulty of adding one more?
>
> * ARRL Field Day
> * RTTY Roundup
> * NA VHF Contest
> * EU VHF Contest
> * WW Digi Contest
>
> I mean, FT4 was added as a new mode specifically to support
contesting.
> Winter Field Day is certainly treated as a contest by many hams.
>
> Based upon your message from November, 2018, there are only three
bits
> available. So is there any possibility of using a fourth bit, or
are no
> more bits available? Based on what you said later in the same
message
> thread, this doesn't seem like a possibility? Or as you mentioned
> before, is it possible to repurpose the existing bits for WFD?
Michael
> Black, W9MDB, mentioned this very same solution on 11/20/2018
>
> On the flip side, it seems to me that designing the 77? bit protocol
> with the above contests, but no WFD seems to me to be a failure of
> design (or a failure of imagination), rather than implementation.
Or was
> it intentional to leave out WFD? I'm really not trying to "poke the
> bear" here, but at the very least, I'd like to urge support be
added for
> WFD, whether it is repurposing the existing bits or (gasp),
creating a
> 78-bit message exchange which of course would not be
backward-compatible.
>
> Please advise and 73,
>
> --
> Dave Slotter, W3DJS <https://www.qrz.com/db/W3DJS
<https://www.qrz.com/db/W3DJS>>
>
>
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