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Author Topic: The Golden Days of DXing or the End of Days?  (Read 2196 times)

K1VSK

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Re: The Golden Days of DXing or the End of Days?
« Reply #30 on: January 31, 2023, 06:33:46 AM »

Quote
Scarborough exists on current nav charts of that area so there is no reason to assume it doesn’t exist. Whether or not it should have ever been added to the DXCC list is a separate matter and already thoroughly debated.

When I google it, it is usually called "Scarborough Shoals" these days which implies that it may not be above the waterline.  But, that's just a word.

Even so, boats are not just interested in islands. They are at least as interested in places where some damn rock does not quite break the surface, especially if there is a long, extensive collection of these that the hull would scrape.  They amount to submerged oceanic mountains or continental shelf extensions that are not quite reaching the surface.

I'm not sure that something being a on navigation chart proves it meets the arcane ARRL definitions here.
Nav charts indicate elevation.
If you know the history of why Scarborough was included in the first place, the criteria are irrelevant to that decision and the DXAC explained why the voted against inclusion. It’s a moot point now.
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N5INP

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Re: The Golden Days of DXing or the End of Days?
« Reply #31 on: January 31, 2023, 07:55:54 AM »

FT8 ruining ham radio? Oh my that ain't nothin' compared to what's coming ... just wait until someone somewhere integrates ChatGPT into some modes, fine tuned to act as the ham radio operator, just text, or even text to voice and back.

If you don't know what ChatGPT is by now, better read this -

https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2023/01/27/chatgpt-buzzfeed-ai/11129947002/
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K4HB

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Re: The Golden Days of DXing or the End of Days?
« Reply #32 on: January 31, 2023, 08:24:38 AM »

My wife loves playing Bejeweled Blitz in her down time and I kid her about it sometimes, but she saw me manually working FT8 one afternoon and she said it wasn't much different, and by jove I think she's right. It's a great time killer when I have nothing to do.

When there's nothing else to do, 60M will occupy your time. There's no ARRL credit, just work it for the hell of it. Works for me. And then there's always...
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AF5CC

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Re: The Golden Days of DXing or the End of Days?
« Reply #33 on: January 31, 2023, 09:03:26 AM »

If you read the QST product review for the Kenwood TS440 (published in 1986) there is discussion of how a computer was hooked to a TS440 and ran field day fully automated on CW.  Guess we need to ban CW QSOs from awards now.

73 John AF5CC
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AI5BC

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Re: The Golden Days of DXing or the End of Days?
« Reply #34 on: January 31, 2023, 09:09:20 AM »

You gotta love hams, they are such an open-minded inclusive group. Reminds me of religion.
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W2IRT

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Re: The Golden Days of DXing or the End of Days?
« Reply #35 on: January 31, 2023, 09:13:20 AM »

When there's nothing else to do, 60M will occupy your time. There's no ARRL credit, just work it for the hell of it. Works for me.

When there's nothing else to do, all my actual work is complete and chores done and nothing interesting on the bands, you'll find me in my home theater or taking a nap! I've missed a lot of DX while enjoying movies or sleeping in, sadly, and it's why finding the perfect DX alerting solution is worth its weight in gold to me.

And then there's always...

In the grand scheme of things is that achievement level really all that much different than a DXCC certificate? It's an accomplishment that means something to you but to nobody else outside that endeavour.
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Night gathers and now my watch begins. It shall not end until I reach Top of the Honor Roll

Great times are at hand, and soon there will be DX for all—although more for some than for others.

W2IRT

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Re: The Golden Days of DXing or the End of Days?
« Reply #36 on: January 31, 2023, 09:19:30 AM »

You gotta love hams, they are such an open-minded inclusive group. Reminds me of religion.

There's a YouTuber who found a big following doing GMRS gear reviews whose channel is called NotARubicon. He mercilessly skewers what he calls "Sad Hams," those humorless rule-quoting shack dwellers who love to make everybody else's life on the air miserable. He's hilarious.
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Night gathers and now my watch begins. It shall not end until I reach Top of the Honor Roll

Great times are at hand, and soon there will be DX for all—although more for some than for others.

KC2SST

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Re: The Golden Days of DXing or the End of Days?
« Reply #37 on: January 31, 2023, 09:40:09 AM »

The Great Eternal Mode Debate reminds me of something from the May '22 QST.  May 1922. Back when the great mode debate was between damped wave (spark) and continuous wave;

"To hell with C. W." -1ZE, August 15,
1921.
"I am now in favor of passing a law
against all sparks —no excuse for them." -
1ZE, March 31, 1922.


That opinions were deeply held should surprise no one who has made it this far in the thread.   What I do find surprising, compared to today, is that the oldest of old timers (1ZE was, of course, Irving Vermilya, "ham #1" in the US) actually changed his mind about something new in ham radio. 
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KD8MJR

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Re: The Golden Days of DXing or the End of Days?
« Reply #38 on: January 31, 2023, 01:02:58 PM »

So your admitting that an Autonomous station is not only possible but very real and you have one available to you?
You just finished saying it was a Strawman argument!
I'm saying that mass quantities of full-auto contacts are almost certainly not happening. Yes, of course some folks are running automated, and I'm pretty sure I've run across a few on 6m last summer—endless CQing for 45 minutes overnight, failure to complete calls and going into a 10 minute loop, that kind of thing. When I was playing with it myself I noticed that happening on occasion. I never left it unattended and maybe made 100 or so QSOs that way, probably more as "proof of concept" than anything else. It's buggy and prone to hiccup, plus it's not legal if you let it go unattended. I'd have never once claimed any credit, naturally, but that wasn't an issue since I think I just worked a bunch of stateside or easy western EU stuff on 20 when it was chock-full.

You may not be using it but why do you think others are not?
Like I said, I have no doubt a few folks are using it, and a subset of them are possibly claiming awards off it, but I believe that number is miniscule bordering on statistically insignificant. It's non-trivial to accomplish if you're not fully computer-literate. Have I worked a 'bot? Probably, but I have no idea if the station I called is automated or not, and 99% of the time the QSO progresses normally. If everybody was running bots the problems would become very obvious in short order. When I was experimenting I don't think I got more than 5 or 6 QSOs worked before it started acting up and I had to manually halt TX or change macros, etc. I don't think automating the software is stable enough for use by the hordes and masses. And I can't see the point, quite frankly. I like the mode because it has error correction so no more ESP contacts as I claimed back in the RTTY days.

My wife loves playing Bejeweled Blitz in her down time and I kid her about it sometimes, but she saw me manually working FT8 one afternoon and she said it wasn't much different, and by jove I think she's right. It's a great time killer when I have nothing to do.

A few posts ago you said it was a Strawman argument and now you say I used it myself for a hundred Automated contacts.   I really don't care that you used it but your theory that just because you decided to quit means that most people are quitting is based on nothing.

People always tend to take the easy way of doing something and really why sit there and click a mouse?  If they are already going for the easy way to wrack up Qs then why would they stop short of just letting the program do all the work.
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WO7R

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Re: The Golden Days of DXing or the End of Days?
« Reply #39 on: January 31, 2023, 01:29:14 PM »

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People always tend to take the easy way of doing something and really why sit there and click a mouse?

It's clear you don't use FT8 or you never would write that.

Try it out.  You're going after, say OY1CT.  Then suddenly three JA stations are there, wanting to call you.  Well, do you abandon the OY1CT call and work them?  You'll probably be sitting there a while.  Do you ignore them?  Work them?  Some of both?

'bots aren't likely to do what you want here.

I don't know about you, but my "buro" mailings are positively bulging with JA QSL cards I neither want nor need.  Yes, FT8 too.

Just today, I got a direct request from a JA station and an Italian one yesterday.  It's not daily here, but it is quite a bit. All useless to me personally.  I operate, frankly, to minimize such stuff these days.

Anyone who runs FT8 in bot mode is asking for lots of junk direct buro and even direct cards even as a lowly W.

There's plenty of good reasons not to run it in 'bot mode.  You're there for specific stations on the whole.  Runs of JAs on FT8 can be fun sometimes, but it is actually mostly annoying.  Especially as you know it's going to produce QSL cards that are done "just because" of JA culture.

We can talk about DXpedition practices separately, but even there, there's plenty of reason and desire to be selective.  In fact, WSJT-X F&H mode has options that let you be selective in what's available to put in the Q.

But, you still end up reacting in real time.  I see DX operators adjusting the number of streams regularly.  There's trade-offs, after all, between signal strength and the number of stream one runs.  No 'bot knows anything about any of that and until the AI gets really advanced (someone will have to write this kind of code), no 'bot ever will.

So, if you're there for rate, you aren't going to sit there and do nothing.  It just doesn't work that way.
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KD8MJR

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Re: The Golden Days of DXing or the End of Days?
« Reply #40 on: January 31, 2023, 01:45:03 PM »

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People always tend to take the easy way of doing something and really why sit there and click a mouse?

It's clear you don't use FT8 or you never would write that.

Try it out.  You're going after, say OY1CT.  Then suddenly three JA stations are there, wanting to call you.  Well, do you abandon the OY1CT call and work them?  You'll probably be sitting there a while.  Do you ignore them?  Work them?  Some of both?


I am going to do something that almost no one on this forum seems to do and that is to reply to you. 

It is obvious that you have never used the software.
It keeps on replying to stations that call out to you and then logs them and picks the next station.  No it's not ideal for selecting entities but you can also set wanted prefixes so yes  from what I understand of it you can set it to keep working only JA or probably use the filter and it will work only Asian stations until you tell it to stop.
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W1VT

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Re: The Golden Days of DXing or the End of Days?
« Reply #41 on: January 31, 2023, 06:01:53 PM »

One casualty of the mode wars is that a bunch of guys did 47GHz EME and didn't tell anyone! 
They just didn't have enough signal to do it on CW so one of them came up with the software to make digital contacts.

FT8 has allowed me to spend a few years working on 2500 DXCC challenge points.  I need to work another two dozen.
On CW I'm stuck at 9BDXCC and 2000 Challenge points.  Getting that tenth band or 2500 points only with CW is highly unlikely.
I have over fifty countries two way QRP CW but getting to the full hundred is also unlikely with increased noise levels making it harder to make 2 way QRP contacts.
There are times when it is hard to be heard through the noise with 500 watts much less 5 watts.

Zak W1VT
« Last Edit: January 31, 2023, 06:10:58 PM by W1VT »
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W2IRT

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Re: The Golden Days of DXing or the End of Days?
« Reply #42 on: January 31, 2023, 06:42:12 PM »

A few posts ago you said it was a Strawman argument and now you say I used it myself for a hundred Automated contacts. I really don't care that you used it but your theory that just because you decided to quit means that most people are quitting is based on nothing. People always tend to take the easy way of doing something and really why sit there and click a mouse?  If they are already going for the easy way to wrack up Qs then why would they stop short of just letting the program do all the work.
I think the number of full-auto is just so low as to not even be worth considering; statistical outliers and all that. I'd wager the total is maybe a tenth of one percent, and not even worth considering in my opinion. You've gotta be really into software, know how to keep it running and sit there to babysit it, which frankly negates the whole purpose. At best it helps that you don't have to press the enable TX button before each call, and that I can see being helpful.

Try it out.  You're going after, say OY1CT.  Then suddenly three JA stations are there, wanting to call you.  Well, do you abandon the OY1CT call and work them?  You'll probably be sitting there a while.  Do you ignore them?  Work them?  Some of both?
That's a very regular occurrence for me. It's a PITA sometimes, especially when I'm deliberately calling the more interesting entities in Asia and 40 JAs come back. I'll generally let the TX watchdog time out. If I can't work the guy I'm calling I'll start running JAs for a while, until I see the needed station CQing a couple of times, then I'll put the pileup on hold.

OY1CT is an excellent example. OY will always be in demand and I try to get it for a Marathon point every year, but invariably my feed fills up with every imaginable prefix from Europe. And they Just Won't Stop. And I'm just a lowly little W2 in a county with more active hams than some entire U.S. states. The worst offenders are the jackwads who deliberately change their TX frequency to OY1CTs so I'll see their call on the right side. They get blacklisted.

I don't know about you, but my "buro" mailings are positively bulging with JA QSL cards I neither want nor need.
That aspect of things I don't personally mind. I like QSLing. Even JAs, and Is and EAs, etc. I am a buro letter manager so it's not a burden to me, either time-wise or financial, other than getting 1000 cards printed every so often. Big whoop. Now, if I had to pay for my incoming and outgoing buro cards that would be a very different ball of wax.
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Night gathers and now my watch begins. It shall not end until I reach Top of the Honor Roll

Great times are at hand, and soon there will be DX for all—although more for some than for others.

WO7R

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Re: The Golden Days of DXing or the End of Days?
« Reply #43 on: January 31, 2023, 11:00:21 PM »

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It is obvious that you have never used the software.

Which software is that?  The fully automated stuff.  Nope, haven't done that one.

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It keeps on replying to stations that call out to you and then logs them and picks the next station. 

So far, you haven't distinguished it from a valid mode of running the software.  There are times the operator can and should be selective.  There are other times when you, the DXpeditioner, just want to fill the q as fast as possible.  If you do that, it works exactly as you describe.  It has a manually provided backlog, so it never stops.  But it does not initiate.  Maybe you can make more automated code do that, but unless you're there, it would be very hard to know the difference.

Quote
No it's not ideal for selecting entities but you can also set wanted prefixes so yes  from what I understand of it you can set it to keep working only JA or probably use the filter and it will work only Asian stations until you tell it to stop.

"From what I understand."  Why not quote the manual on these features and options?  If it works like that, I'm sure you can point to documentation.  I would be interested.

I sure don't know any Windows GUI macro approach (which is how many of these things work) that is that good, though.  That would be a new one.

However, what you are describing is hardly "fire it up, take a nap, and look at the log in a couple of hours."

If you're being selective at all, you have to attend the thing.  At that point, I don't see the advantages in any fully automated approach. 

Similarly, if you are adjusting the stream count (and the power), then you're still baby sitting the machine.

In both of these scenarios, filling the q by hand is just no big deal compared to what you're already having to do.

The only automated scenario that makes sense would be for a really big time (Bouvet level) that could set up 20 meters in the middle of the day or maybe 80 meters at night, let it indiscriminately work folks with one, maybe two fixed streams, and then take your nap and just accept the consequences.  If you're a one man shop, that might be attractive.  For a couple of hours a day, max.  Not even a full eight hours.

If you have even a small team, that's not the way to maximize rate.

Sure, if you want a demonstration level of full automation, there's a lot you can do.  But if you're an actual expedition going for rate, the vast majority of the scenarios require babysitting the machine.  Some, you have now described yourself.
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KC0W

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Re: The Golden Days of DXing or the End of Days?
« Reply #44 on: February 01, 2023, 01:10:43 AM »

 I downloaded & tested out fully automated FT8 about 2 years ago. I sat there and watched as it kept on giving stations who were calling me their report over, & over & over again. After doing this perhaps 5 times in a row the QSO was FINALLY completed. After 30 minutes of this nonsense I threw in the towel & deleted the program. I think I logged a whopping 5 QSOs in 30 minutes. 

                                                                                         Tom KH0/KC0W   
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