We are almost a week past Field Day 2025 as I write this. I believe I had a successful Field Day operation as a 1E station (translation: a single transceiver running from home on emergency power). I ran on battery power being charged by solar cells. I was able to have about 7-8 hours of operation (active transmitting and receiving) while I had a total of 11 hours of uptime for the batteries before they were drained. I ran between 10-25 watts and strictly digital since you get 2x the QSO points as you would with voice on single sideband. I operated both FT8 and PSK31–which made me consider something for how points are allocated.

First, let me preface this with that I run FT8 a lot. It’s probably my primary mode of operation since I can run it while doing other things in the shack. It’s semi-automated when making QSOs, so the process is pretty straightforward for hams to operate easily. The point allocation for Field Day for the past number of years has been 2 points for CW QSOs, 2 points for digital mode QSOs, and 1 point for SSB phone QSOs. The 2 points for digital and CW are likely an incentive for hams to operate those modes more while voice QSOs are “easier” or at least just needing a mic and your voice.

I think that’s where the ARRL may want to look at how points are allocated. FT8 is a weak signal mode (in spite of those running at 100+ watts), so it should be able to pull signals near the noise floor–which is good for operating QRP or if your antenna isn’t the most efficient. That plus the semi-automatic ability to make QSOs, and it makes operating digital modes fairly trivial–versus SSB phone where either you have to work a pileup or squint your ears to hear a station that is right at your noise floor. In my opinion, it’s harder to work SSB phone than it is working digital modes–especially FT8! Now, again, don’t take this as hatred towards the mode. I think it’s great for what it is and how it works. I just think the way points are scored should be based on difficulty.

Perhaps it could be allocated as: 3 points for CW (not trivial since you’re having to listen, decode, and transmit on a key), 2 points for SSB voice, 2 points for other digital modes, and 1 point for FT8. I think sending and receiving CW is an art (assuming that folks aren’t using keyboard and computer to decode/encode CW transmissions)–it takes understanding the rhythm of what is being sent and received to complete a contact. I believe both SSB phone and other digital modes (like PSK31, RTTY, etc.) can be put into the same category–like I said, hearing distance voices at the noise floor takes time and patience to pull out their Field Day exchange. As for other digital modes, well, they are still fairly manual. Macros in fldigi and Ham Radio Deluxe help, but you still have to try to pull out the signal from a crowded band or through the noise.

Anyway, those are just thoughts about the points. My hope is to make improvements to my emergency power setup and see if I can make my battery power budget go a bit further for next year.

Until next time… 73 and GL