Well, Field Day is fast approaching, and I'm sure many of us are going to be running, at the very least, some keyboard digital modes during the event. Perhaps now would be a good time to plan the use of some "demonstration" modes, each worth 302 points for a single logged QSO (one-shot 300 point bonus for each mode, plus 2 points for a non-voice QSO).
SSTV is good, but 14.230, as bad as it is on a normal day, is absolutely unusable on FD. I suggest the use of the MFSK16 pic mode. I will be preparing a picture of our FD site to send, and will say "have pix?" during the exchange while running MFSK16. For "wide" SSTV, you might try 28.680 or 21.340, which are the 14.230 equivalents on 15 and 10 meters. Does anyone else think it may be possible to claim a separate 300 point bonus for regular, MFSK and digital SSTV if contacts are made with all three? For those of you who will have VHF stations, once you've worked everyone on 6 meter phone, maybe some meteor scatter could be attempted. I don't think PJC can be legally used to set up contacts, so everything will have to be random and uncoordinated. I guess the thing to do will be to call on 50.260 and 144.140 with the U/D method, though I'd imagine those frequencies will fill up fast. We'll have to come up with some other possibilities. Like above, I'm wondering if FSK441 and JT6M can be claimed separately... It might be fun to try digital voice, though I can see it being especially difficult to pull off. There will be no open space on 20 meters, 15 may be too long to get a good signal within the US, and 10 may have too much QSB. WinDRM would probably be the way to go, since I highly doubt anyone will be bringing along an AOR modem. And finally, I'm wondering if we can claim a bonus for hacking together a soundcard interface on-site? Probably not, but would be fun anyway... Anyway, I will be running various modes on 40, 20 and 10 meters using my own call (as a GOTA station). On and off, I'll be running MFSK16 trying to find stations to exchange pics with. -Joe, N8FQ
