As I’ve said before, I don’t believe it’s a case of FT8 being “good” or “bad” for ham radio. The problem is a level playing field for competition purposes.
Personally, I don’t believe statements such as “Your DXCC is your own” or “Your DXCC is what you make of it” etc. Rubbish. All serious DXers are always looking to see where there are in the pecking order of accomplishments. If you’re a serious DXer and don’t care where you stand among your peers, then while you may be out there, I figure you’re few and far between. The ARRL could easily & significantly mitigate this by allowing band specific DXCC awards with mode endorsements; stated alternately, 160M DXCC-CW, 160M DXCC-FT8, 40M-Digital, 17M-SSB etc. I’ve been a software engineer for 35 years. While I appreciate the complexity aspects of such a change to the DXCC award program, I believe the only real factor standing in the way of making such a change is the ARRL’s desire to do so. It’s not rocket science. Make your voices known. For those that claim that mode is not important, then ask the ARRL and CQ to get rid of mode specific contests. We’ll just have a single CQ WW where you can use SSB, RTTY, Digital etc, one ARRL DX Competition where any mode goes. See how far the contest community will let that one go. 73 Mark K3MSB _________________ Topband Reflector Archives - http://www.contesting.com/_topband