2m challenge no digital mode? here is the paradoxal answer

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Hello,

As I love SOTA and I really had fun with 10m challenge (4th ww), I bought a FT857D (not qrv 2m SSB nor cw).
I sent a message to the SOTA admin team to ask why digi modes were not in the game.

Find below the exchanges, I let you analize and make your own opinion on the answer I received. I will share my analysis after. I removed the name of the admin to not finger point anyone.

Messages:

> Dear Administartors,

Thanks a million for this year challenge.
I loved (really loved) 10m challenge.
For this year, I bought a FT857D to be QRV on 2m SSB.
I have one interface enhancement suggestion : add “world wide” in the drop down list (I did the same request for 10m).
And one request : adding digital modes to the challenge.
Explanations : I tried at each SOTA CW qso … but I made only 2 QSO with my friend and mentor Gerald F6HBI, one with a friend near Marseille (I had to call them to propose CW qso), BUT I heard several times ft8 on 2m.
So I would love to get this mode added to reflect both SOTAist expectations and actual mode activities.
I am sure that it will enhance your chance to reach your goal : make 2m more used.
Thanks in advance for your attention.
Best regards, J. F4IVI
———————————————————————-
Bonjour Jerome,
There was lots of discussion about what the challenge should be, which
bands and which modes.
Based on our analysis of previous times when data modes have been
included in challenges, we found very low levels of support for data
modes. After consideration the MT decided on SSB and CW only.
73
XXXXXXX

_______________________________________

Hello XXXXXX,

Thanks a million for your answer.

Please forward my answer to MT:

I bet that you did not analyze the last 10m challenge, Germany vs France (myself) has been a great moment, especially thanks to FT8 / FT4.

Moreover, excluding a mode is showing one thing: pleasing resistant to change OMs is more important than embracing the FULL community without any differentiation.

Maybe this is not your wish to send such a message, but I can assure you that this is the way I do receive it.

I suggest you to have a look at social media content, you will see some “NO ft8” … I’ll let you analyze the common specificity of such a profile.

Digital mode is more and more used, they are complementary, I never saw an OM pretending it would replace SSB or CW.

It would have been a perfect momentum to enhance VHF and UHF usage by allowing FT4 FT8 RRTY.

I am adding some of my French SOTA colleagues, maybe they do not share my opinion, anyway they know mine already :slight_smile:

I really thank you for this marvellous SOTA activity, it changed my life, to be more specific, it changed my weekends and after work activities!

All the best, JĂ©rĂ´me, F4IVI.

__________________________________________________

My opinion is that in France, we are facing a recurring situation: when the government wants to apply a law without parliament agreement, they use “49.3” … MT decision making looks the same to me → not considering the global usage is, by definition, excluding some.

All the best to all, thanks again for SOTA activity, interfaces, tools and challenge organization.

J. F4IVI

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So here’s the thing:

  • We’ve done digital challenges in the past, with low takeup. Of the Flavours challenge we ran, DV and DATA were the least engaged flavours, and the challenge didn’t encourage more activations.
  • We try to find new options for challenges where possible.
  • We’ve already received some criticism that 2m SSB/CW is “elitist” or “gatekeeping” because of the potential cost to entry for someone who has no 2m SSB/CW option, Quanshengs, etc notwithstanding.
  • We have to create a challenge that is largely open to all license classes, and there are license classes where digital is not permitted.
  • We partially designed this challenge to vigorously test out the distance handling aspects of the SOTA infrastructure, which it has certainly done that.
  • FT4 and FT8 share only 4 digit locators in standard forms, which isn’t really accurate enough.
  • There’s no “No-FT8” conspiracy in the MT, many of whom use FT8 regularly (myself included).

But sure, we screwed up by not including digital. Just like the folks who’ve complained we screwed up by not including 2m FM (one of our most popular band/mode combos).

Run your own challenge if you wish, like LA1KHA 9V challenge, etc. This challenge is 2m SSB/CW and it’s now a month in and we’re not going to change the rules now.

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Hi, Jerome.
Andrew has explained the outcome of intensive discussion by the MT, but there is one more point worth making:
We try and organise a challenge every two years. We call them a “challenge” because they have to be challenging, taking people outside their comfort zone. Now while 2m is not as lively as it was two or more decades ago, it still supports a lot of SOTA activity with 2m FM making up about 16% of all SOTA QSOs. On the other hand the traditional DX modes, CW and SSB, have faded to vanishing point, yet these modes given any one of several types of anomalous propagation can give amazing results. My personal best was 2,200km into LZ using 5 watts of SSB and a 5el yagi, via Es. Using the same set-up I could reliably achieve distances of 400km in ordinary “flat” conditions, well beyond the usual capability of FM. It seemed to us on the MT that it would be a good idea to remind people of the capabilities of these traditional modes. And so now to the point I want to make:

Please bear in mind that we do not have to do everything in one go. In 2027 we will be looking at options for more challenges. V/UHF digital will, I’m sure, be one of the options considered.

Finally, in answer to your point about “49.3”, I have to point out that SOTA is not a club with members and democratic elections, it is just an award scheme managed by a team using the guide lines laid down by the Founders of the award.

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Yes, but that was in the days when doing digital while out portable involved a lot of extra kit (laptop etc).

The situation has changed dramatically since then. You even mentioned the modern cheap handie talkies which are quite capable of doing digital (as well as SSB/CW) with an interface costing a few $ÂŁ

So sorry, but I agree with F4IVI - this sounds like “old fogies” syndrome!

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I’d like to request that challenges are announced as early as possible. So if there is going to be a 2028 challenge, announce in the summer or very early autumn of 2027. This gives people chance to sort out the required equipment. So if it’s to be a digital challenge there’s time for operators to work out what kit they need and to set it up. It would have been helpful for this year’s challenge to have known sooner so that I could have sorted out a yagi, for example.

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I’m sure that you are a datamode enthusiast, Colin, but I don’t think that datamodes are a significant factor in SOTA, as yet. Looking at the database SOTA has recorded 12,254,788 QSOs, of which just 120,023 were via datamodes, less than one percent, for all bands, not just V/UHF. A datamode challenge might see an increased takeup of datamodes, given your point about it becoming easier equipment-wise, but it seemed wise to delay and see if it becomes more available globally to all license classes.

Yes, we were a bit late with this Richard, caught up in other matters, so sorry. All is not lost, spring and autumn are the best times of year for tropo (and Ar) and summer for sporadic E, so there is still time to knock up or buy a suitable beam!

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The challenge is not a zero-sum game. Just because mode X or band Y is not included doesn’t mean you can’t go and do those things.

The challenge, 2m/70cm SSB/CW, had brought people out using band-mode combinations not seen so well supported since SOTA started back 20-25 years ago. If you want to use digital modes then are you seriously suggesting you are being prevented from doing so because the mode wont score points in the challenge?

If you have more people than ever doing VHF/UHF narrowband ops then common sense says you work them on SSB/CW and then suggest QSYing to a digi mode. Oh dear, it wont score but those QRV for digimodes will be happy for QSOs.

We did think of maybe including 23cm or 13cm in the challenge. My argument is if it seems too involved, then people pull back. As it is once the WX improves, I expect people who have portable 23/13cm gear to take it with them. Why wouldn’t you if you know there will be 2m/70cm SSB QSOs to be had, you obviously take your lowband uWave gear as well.

Using crass marketing terms, activators/chasers need to reach-out and leverage a change in activations to add the extras they want. If Joe Q. Ham sees people doing the challenge and extending it and then having more fun then they too will want some if it.

It’s not exactly super SOTA WX right now. I haven’t been out for 6 weeks because whenever I’ve been free to go out it’s been far, far too wet. (Too wet for someone who has lived in GM for 25+ years!) I expect to see people extending VHF/UHF challenge ops to include their own favourites once the WX improves.

YMMV

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I’m 44.

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To be fair, I’ve met teenagers who qualified as old fogies, its more a matter of attitude than age, and in the popular imagination being a ham qualifies you as a fogy whatever your age! :rofl:

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It’s a shame that almost all the pictures in Radcom show old white men.

Typical British understatement! Not only is activating unappealing but so is playing with antennas. When the weather is better I hope to build a 2m yagi and perhaps get some better distances from summits.

Exactly. A challenge is an extra and you can choose not to take part.

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I certainly would agree that it is a shame that there is little opportunity to show any greater spread in ages or racial features, but that is the way it is, that is what you see in clubs and at rallies, so those pictures reflect reality. It was that way when I first went to rallies and club meetings back in the early sixties, finding myself usually the youngest ham in the room in my early twenties, and more recently I have visited local clubs to deliver talks about SOTA and found the same preponderance of old white males. It is what it is, ham radio has muddled through the last half dozen decades as an old mans game, it will probably continue that way - but at least SOTA improves the average level of fitness! :wink:

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So old. So sad. How’s the sciatica?

:laughing:

73

Ron

VK3AFW

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I work in IT. The sciatica is awful.

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“It’s a shame that almost all the pictures in Radcom show old white men.”

Please explain why this is a shame?

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If you walk into a room and all the people look physically similar, e.g. male, over 60, grey and/or balding, white/Caucasian ethnicity and you are not the same in some or all characteristics then you will feel awkward and not part of the group. It requires considerable strength of character to enter and engage with these people because people tend to group in to groups of people they look like.

My club is in a city with a leading university and we get regular but ultimately transitory interest and membership of undergrads and post-grads studying electronics/physics etc. Many are studying intriguing uses of technology related to wireless technologies, e.g. using back-scatter of in-building WiFi signals for 3rd party comms between IoT devices. We normally find most of the post-grad students are not Europeans and age difference apart, they are not like the majority of our members. As such we go to great lengths to make these people feel welcome when in a vastly different group of people.

The same happens when you see a magazine full of pictures of old white men and you are not an old white man. It projects, sub-consciously, that this activity, amateur radio, is not for you because you do not look like the people involved.

In theory the make up of ethnicity of radio amateurs should mirror the country and if it is massively different then the hobby is not representing everyone. Whether this is good or bad is a matter for you. But as it stands, it appears that members of about 18% of the England&Wales population does not take part in amateur radio. That should probably be addressed.

p.s. I don’t have any figures of ethnicity make up for Scotland to hand, hence only referring to England and Wales.

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Well, if you need to ask…

There are many different people involved in amateur radio across various groups eg: sex, race, age, affluence, education etc. However, the dominant group are old white blokes - (the hobby is dying etc…)

Read through RadCom - old white haired white men. Letters page - don’t even go there!

Watch the RSGB convention videos - a half empty room of bald heads, fat old blokes who cut their own hair (or don’t) and have egg on their pullovers.

Photos in RadCom of the recent Scottish microwave round table. Mainly old white guys. Clever people obviously. :wink:

Photos from a recent “meet the board” or something at the national radio centre - average age 75.

How do you attract new people into our hobby? In the old days, you would have possibly called it positive discrimination. It’s not that. However, it is featuring positive images and stories across social media and in the publications. On videos, doing presentations, and even on the board. Getting in schools and universities, promoting STEM. Attracting makers, coders and the like.

Ultimately these images and videos need to be of young people, people from ethnic groups, women, LGBT, disabled people etc. Pretty much a representation of the people in the UK.

@everyone welcome.

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I don’t feel any need to criticise Radcom for not printing the pictures that they don’t receive. It would be possible to stage pictures showing people from racial minorities taking part in ham radio, but in the end that would be dishonest - and probably ineffective since the audience for those pictures would be unchanged.

Frankly, I don’t care about the ethnicity behind the voices that I hear on my radio. I can’t see them, only hear them, and if I could see them I still wouldn’t care. I believe in the policy of lassez faire. Things will even out in time.

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I think part of this is inherent to the hobby. A lot of “traditional” amateur radio operating seems to revolve around spending a lot of money on equipment, then sitting at home and repeating the same exchanges for hours, “You’re 5/9, CQ contest”, or having long conversations about antennas, health issues, or the same familiar topics.

And honestly, guess who tends to tick all those boxes? Mostly older white men.

I’m 37, and I got my licence because I wanted to experiment with radio, and because there’s also a “prepper” side to my interest. But if it weren’t for SOTA and the mountains, I’d barely use my home station at all.

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I wasn’t criticising Radcom or indeed anyone. I was merely commenting that it’s a shame our hobby doesn’t appeal to a greater proportion of our population.

There is a more serious side to this point though. I am a retired (for now) software engineer and I have also worked with many electronics engineers. Very few have been women. I’ve been told by female colleagues that they were actively discouraged at school from pursuing science and engineering. Hopefully such attitudes are less prevalent that they were, but it is still an uphill struggle. My daughter did one year of electronics at school but didn’t carry on for GCSE partly because she was the only girl in the class. I’m pleased to say that many of the girls in her year are now studying engineering at university.

Without Ben @GW4BML that would be nearer 100.

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I’m convinced that it is, technically, possible to talk about something other than weather and health issues on 80m.

Maybe intorducing a demographic who actually, you know, left the house and did something today would liven things up. Or maybe they’re all too busy doing something to talk with a group of old men who didn’t.

QED

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