To take the topic further, the 160 FT8 takeover doesn't end there. It has killed DXing entirely for me. On any band. I am exclusively an HF contester now. Love it. But that is my only ham radio activity.
It forces people onto the mode. There is no FT8 on a CW or SSB contest no matter how you slice it. And that does get me on 160 but only in contests now. You are lucky if a DXpedition is 50% non FT8 these days. And of course, 100% of their 160 contacts will be FT8 and likely 80 or 90% of 80M. I still have 10 zones to go on 160 and 2 on 80. Good luck with that. So I gave up on it at 2 zones short of 5BWAZ. Many Dxpeditions are 80 or 90% FT8. They put up HUGE QSO totals that literally blow away what was considered a darned good DXpedition back in the 80s, 90s, 2000s of 20 or 30,000 Qs. If you don't hit 100,000 Qs these days, you are essentially nobody. Robots working robots are VERY efficient at creating Qs apparently. Some people are still trying to reverse the trend. I have accepted it but are not joining it. As VE9AA said, I will not cheapen what I have done by staining it with FT8 fillers to feel good about myself. I would rather walk away with my head high and focus on what I still love in DXing which is the HF contests. And amazingly, most have had enormous growth rates over the past years so that aspect of the hobby is not fading away. One exception sadly is the 160 contests, which have been declining over the years in QSO totals and I am not meaning sunspot activity, this trend started at the last sunspot low. As Jeff says, it is what it is. Ed N1UR _________________ Searchable Archives: http://www.contesting.com/_topband - Topband Reflector
