FT8 – Tipping Point for Ham Radio?

"DX is like a box of chocolates"
F.Gump c.1994

 

I monitor a number of repeaters in my area. Mostly Zzzzzzzzz. Only activities are rush hour traffic alerts and an occasional interesting net; Ham Club net, an Astronomy net, etc.

 

GEEEZZZZ GUYS, it's only a fantastic HOBBY, so WHY NOT EMBRACE ALL NEW MODES??? Even though every week it seems that some CLEVER INDIVIDUAL comes up with a BETTER "MOUSE-TRAP' so to speak for communications via AMATEUR RADIO!!! You've got to love the INVENTIVENESS of all the "BOYS&GIRLS"!!!

 

Uh oh...

1) Why are you SHOUTING?

2) We're all pretty observant here and caught the first question mark. The following two were unnecessary. Unless your question mark and exclamation mark keys are sticking, please read:

https://workplace.stackexchange.com...spond-to-people-who-overuse-punctuation-marks

 

Death "knell." And it wasn't quite, even if some people did hear it as didididahdidah.

 

FT8 is an example of the caricature of ham radio that we are so willing to accept and even promote because the current propagation sucks. Sure, its an efficient way to make a contact, a very LIMITED contact. But are these real QSOs? Of course not. This reminds me a bit of these "nets" where people "check in" and then just go away. They stand by on one frequency and wait until some control station tells them that they can now check in. Instead, they could branch out over the band and call CQ (something that I hear very little of these days, by the way). But, no, these hams are satisfied with being "checked in". Big deal! Ask yourself, if ham radio had been primarily this kind of thing when you started (I got my Advanced in 1969, BTW) would you have stayed with the hobby? I sure wouldn't have. I heard a good description of FT8. It was called a "drive by contact". No thanks.

 

FT-8 … The easy way out... Most hams don't listen on the bands anymore because of this mode...They'd rather switch on a pc and let that do the work for em….

 

Anybody participated in the FT8 contest this past weekend? Please let us know what you thought of it.

Be nice...I really want to know. I don't think FT8 and contesting are a good fit, and I'm known to be a happy FT8 user.

 

I got my ticket in 1980. I was interested in the technical side of the hobby, not chatting on the radio. Thank the technical guys, or we would still be using spark transmitters and coherer receivers. Ragchewers do not have a good track record at technical innovations.

Except for some contesting, the most on air time I have had since becoming a ham has been after JT65 was introduced, followed by FT8.

As for an FT8 description, I prefer 'hit and run' contacts.

By the way, there is no FT8 QSO, only contacts. Those looking for QSOs are using the wrong mode. Use the right 'tool' for the 'job', always.

 

I did - it was fantastic - 244 QSO's with 77 Multipliers.

It was both fun and challenging.

 

I first used a computer to augment the hamateur radio and SWL hobbies in 1987. The computer was a lowly Texas Instruments TI-99/4A. It had a 16 bit 3 mHz processor, 16 K of RAM, a 5/1/4" floppy drive and a very small hard disc drive. I don't remember the capacity of the hard drive now.

I wrote two programs in the DOS O/S BASIC computer language, one for logging QSO's and the other to keep track of solar, space and geomagnetic weather.

I started controlling my rig (a Yaesu FT-890) with a computer in 1997 and have never looked back. I used at the time free HRD software and a desk top computer. It was an IBM clone with 128 megs of RAM and a 50 gig hard drive. It ran the W-98SE O/S.

Nowadays I look at the computer (2 lap tops) as an essential part of the radio hobby, as are my rigs (Icom IC-7410 and IC-7600) , etc. I'm also still an active SWL (beginning in 1965) and run 3 different software logging programs (ACLog v3.0) for LF, MF, and HF DX'ing.

I now cant imagine having no computer in the radio shack.

 

A new dual paddle key?

The adjustments are not fine enough.

 

OK, then what is a "real" QSO?

FT8 isn't the "primary kind of thing" unless you make it. And ham radio has been full of "drive-by-contacts" way before computers were ever involved. Chasing DX, working contests, "entity" hunting (county, gridsquare, lighthouse, SOTA, etc.) have had minimal contact exchanges for many, many years.

I don't get the net check in thing either, but so what? How does it diminish the hobby to you? Why does what someone else finds enjoying matter to you at all?

I enjoy a good ragchew on HF. I enjoy FT8. I don't think getting on 80M and complaining about the weather and hip replacement surgery is anymore a "real" QSO than any other.

 

Talking about my life with complete strangers, and hearing them say that I'm a lucky man.

Then hearing about their dreadful life, and telling them to be strong, that things will improve, to look at the bright side of things...and that the XYL is calling me to eat supper.