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Created 2018-10-19
Modified 2019-09-20
This Opinion Piece was written for the October Edition of "CARA News" (the Cheltenham Amateur Radio Association[1]'s newsletter), but I wanted to share it more widelly, and see what people make of it.
This toot by Adam MU0WLV got me thinking the other day:
It got me thinking, are things like FT8, WSPR, and Network Radio, Life Support for our hobby?
Let me make my case on this … when I was new to the hobby, I was promised that you could talk to the world with a bit of wet string and a strong wind. Experienced amateurs spoke, misty eyed, about the time they were chatting to someone in Japan with an amazing signal, or how they regularly spoke to their friend in California.
But, when did this last happen? My log is stuffed full of European stations, and I've barely worked the USA twice.
The fact of the matter is that we are at a Solar Minimum, the bands are all consistently poor (at best!) and it's very hard for new amateurs to get interesting contacts. I can, and have, sat calling CQ on 40m SSB, 20m SSB, any other band I find a signal on, and get nothing back. When do I get a reply? During a contest, then it's just "59" and some other unknown bit of information, often I don't even know which contest people are taking part in.
When else do I make a contact? Using data modes. I've not personally used FT8 (yet), but I've sat down at the computer (after spending ages trying to get it to talk to the radio), turned on JT65, or PSK31, and had more contacts in half an hour than an entire field weekend of SSB. I've got ONE Irish station in my log using 40m SSB, but I can turn on Network Radio and talk to someone using 2m mobile into one of the Southern Irish Repeaters.
Some people complain that data modes aren't "real radio", that having your computer do the decoding isn't proper operating. But, to be honest, who cares? Back in the day, I bet we had the same arguments about the move from Spark Gap radios, when SSB started to become a popular mode for voice I bet people bemoaned that it wasn't as good as AM.
Some point out that using data modes doesn't help the argument that we need the spectrum, if we use it **too** efficiently we won't get to keep it. But the move from AM to SSB did the same, and I don't see anyone saying that CW is "too efficient on spectrum".
Some people say that Network Radio isn't "proper radio" (and, I have sympathy with this, it's not), but it does facilitate "proper radio". At the last field day I was talking to Alan M0NRO, and Derek G3NKS, via the "Engineering Channel" of Network Radio, as we attempted to make three way contact on 40m, 80m, 60m, and finally had success on 10m. Without the Engineering Channel, we'd have given up very quickly, and never found 10m to work so well. Listening to the Southern Irish Repeaters inspired me to make the effort to turn on the radio in my car, which I have to admit I'd not done for ages, and talk to people using our own local repeaters. These are both "Real Radio", that wouldn't have happened without the UnReal Radio being there to help.
Maybe it helps to think of modes like FT8, or Network Radio, or whatever comes next, as "Life Support" for the hobby. Nobody wants to see their loved ones on life support, with a machine keeping them alive. But, given the absolutely horrific HF conditions, isn't life support better than the alternative? If we can't keep people interested in the hobby, interested because they can make contacts with people far away, in challenging conditions, even if it's just on their screen, what will happen when the solar minimum ends and the conditions improve? Give it a few years and we might have amazing HF conditions which mean I can talk to Brazil on 10m using 5 watts of SSB and a wet string, but if I've sold the radio because I only even spoke to someone down the road and that Italian station with too much power, I won't see the benefit.
I'd pick SSB over a data mode any day, you just can't compare the human interaction of hearing a voice to seeing a callsign on a screen. Yes, it's messy and you have to repeat things, and explain things slowly, but that's what we all enjoy, talking to people. Our current data mode obsession isn't because it's better, but because it's essential to fulfil the promise sold to us by the carefully selected memories of people who were active in the heights of the hobby, and the heights of HF conditions. Once those conditions come back, so will SSB, and the bands will be full of human voices again, because then FT8 will be boring, and not the only way.
At the end of the day, if someone is sat in front of a radio, talking to someone else, having fun with their hobby, does it matter if it's not "proper radio"?
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