FT-8, The New HF/6m Digital Mode, Introduction For Beginners

Great FB, Like PSK and have worked WAS/JT65 except for VT...Gon did I hitna give it a try... Sort of "Ham Slots" Did I hit the jackpot (scored a QSO)...tnx/w6vxp

 

unfortunately the FT8 frequencies that are pre-loaded into the WSJT-X software WERE being used by Olivia mode users, which is pretty much wiping things out for them. They're none too happy, can't say I blame them....

 

5W0RR on IOTA OC-097 (Roly ZL1BQD) on 40m this morning handling the pile up expertly weaving from simplex to +/- 1-2 slots split either side.

Many calling. Rarely a repeat. Achieving near optimum QSO rate. No train-wreck.

Several VK's doing same within 1 khz of that too.

 

RE: KD8TNF's attached graphic - I thought BMETs didn't perform services on non-medical equipment. Hooah!

 

Thank you dear Eric for the video and information! Downloaded version 1.8, only gave cq and immediately had a qso with rd7p. Easy and simple, just need to be fast to press buttons and not to sleep. hi hi All the best, 73 and see you!

 

First connection FT8 July 17. On the same day in a few hours all the continents except Antarctica. To date, about 120 countries. FT8 very quickly becomes popular. Glory to Joe K1JT and the team. Success to them.

 

I don't think FT8 or any of the JT-modes will replace PSK, Olivia, RTTY etc. because you can only have a very minimal QSO with any of these new modes. I see quite a lot of PSK activity, there's always a dozen of QSOs in the passband at 14.070 during the evening despite the arrival of FT8. That you can have a proper ragchew with PSK31/63 will be why I generally will always prefer it over FT8, JT9, JT65 etc.

But FT8 has its uses, I got the rc of wsjt-x to have a play with it and it was interesting to see how low I could turn the power down and still make a valid QSO. I turned it down to 1 watt TX power and was still getting out to places like Germany and pskreporter was showing I was being received in Russia. Once I get a portable station together, I think FT8 will be a very useful mode for SOTA activations (although I really want to do SSTV and send an SSTV picture of the hill or mountain top!)

I do have a question on FT8 and related modes - I only started with FT8 a few days ago. When calling CQ, I found myself in a very minor pileup, but what was happening is one would be answering my CQ on my slot, and there would be two or three others answering by transmitting in different slots and the software was decoding them all. When I finish with the first and go to the next, should I (a) keep my TX frequency in the same place or (b) move to the frequency of the next responder? I would imagine (b) would be the best because otherwise our QSO is using up two slots instead of one.