Not pushing anything on you or her or anyone else. Just sating my opinion o FT8 and how fun I find it to be. You don't like it then don't use it. I don'like ragchewing on SSB so I don't do it. You most certainly are entitled to your opinion and have the right to continue doing the things that make you enjoy our hobby the most. I will continue enjoying FT8 and many other modes without discouraging other HAMS to try new ones or continue using the old ones just because I am set on my way of doing things. By the way it is common practice to use Single Side Band primarily on FT8. 73's and have a nice day as well. -DEM
Seriously guys, when "PACKET" started appearing it was pretty useless for DXing…. UNTIL somebody started Linking them all together to become a DX Packet Cluster... *wink* Erika DD
My gripe with FT8 is that when the band opens up......people stay on FT8 and the lack of SSB and CW contacts is horrendous. A few weeks ago, the band was open wide for three hours a station in S. Carolina, Florida and I carried on a conversation, pausing and inviting others in. we remained solid 5/9 plus contacts for almost the entire three hours and never could find anyone else on the airwaves. To me FT8 has it's purpose and I play around with it.....But it is ruining the magic band for me......
Six is an interesting place. We have worked many band openings that start with only a pop or ping and within minutes have jumped to over 200 phone QSO's / hour on a regular NOT A VHF contest weekend... If you never learn how to feel a band and become one with what it's doing, you'll never really Learn about radio. Each one of our bands have different characteristics... For you Guys without room for a station or antennas may I suggest.....? Build yourself a quality mobile or portable station and do some remote operating. We worked our first European 6 meter phone contact from My Broom using it's shortened metal CB whip, on what otherwise seemed to be a very boring Saturday AM after the Witching hour. Sincerely, Erika DD
The best thing about having the 6m BBQ in Austin is that it's too far for most of the FT8 Haters to attend! Radio is radio.
Thats right, now we can downsize the speakers and more BBQ , who needs to talk about station engineering, performance, propagation, DX, all you really need is a table of M2 Halo's, Dell, HP, and Levono computer manufactures. The forerunners of this band, the firsts AKA> http://www.arrl.org/files/file/WA50-Standings/6M-Firsts-By-Prefix-10December2017.pdf who have spent countless hours, engineering, building, listening , learning and waiting would have a few other things to say about the downward spiral. RADIO is RADIO you said it best. There must be something to differentiate the arrays from the compromised antennas. Here's your trophy.
Exactly Craig, Very cool list... Thank you for posting it. Henry K0IJN /sk, the "Radio Amateur" who administered my Novice exam in Dec 1970, a post WWII German immigrant. A very nice man himself a true 2 meter EME pioneer. After the code test a tour of his station located in a concrete real deal Cold War Bunker style bomb shelter. That alone was pseudo impressive enough, then. He pushes a couple buttons after looking at the az and el clicks the side bar on his D104, meters in the rack on the HB pair of 4CX250B's flickering madly. You Still Dare ? He was on 2 meters in an SSB QSO with a buddy when we arrived an hour or so earlier... He was also on 6 and 432, and HF. But the big colinear was on 144 on the bottom mount on the Bertha. With that sort of legacy to live up to? Erika DD
For KB4QAA, I guess you will be there. Life and 13 hour work days have a way of interfering with your hobbies. That will change next year as I will retire and 43 years of work will come to an end. Maybe by then FT8Call will be available to the public. 73, Larry WB8LBZ El Paso, TX
Whoa! KB3RHR and WB8LBZ have taken a left turn and gone off into the ditch. My post was lampooning those who 'FT8 Haters" in this thread who have been claiming that FT8 on 6m is not "real" operating. Any mode or activity that gets hams on the air is good! FT8 has made 6m available to thousands more hams who otherwise would not be be active due to antenna constraints. I support the use of any and all modes on 6m! I would love to attend the 6m BBQ and wish continued great success for the conference and all the attendees! Austin is a great town and I look forward to visiting again someday. 73, Bill
For KB4QAA, I am still cruising down the road. I won't be at the BBQ, prior commitments. 73, Larry WB8LBZ El Paso, TX Period - end of discussion with me.
This reminds me of when I came to Dallas in about 1965, fresh out of college and used my first bonus check to buy a Collins KWM-2 rig to operate out of my second floor apartment. It was of course SSB! There was another ham in Dallas by the name of Tom Gentry and he hated the fact that someone with his name would stoop to work Donald Duck mode. He was AM forever. None of that new fangled SSB crap for him. I think I almost killed him when I walked up to him at a hamfest ans said;"HI, my name is Tom Gentry and I work single sideband!" He started to shake my hand and then realized what I said and spun on his heel and marched off. That's who you guys that are complaining about FT-8 remind me of. First you don't have your facts straight so you sound ignorant and second you obviously have not tried FT-8 or you would know that it is a lot like working CW except that it can decode farther into the noise than most of us can hear much less copy. Third the solar conditions sometimes make it really difficult to work SSB and leave you with the choice to either not work the bands at all or work one of the WSJT digital modes. Thanks to my Flex 6400 SDR radio with its panadapter and waterfall but no knobs, I can find signals on the edge of inaudibility and thanks to F&T I have a little computer program to allow me to make contact with those really weak signals. There is now another offshoot of FT-8 called FT8Call that allows passing FT8 type packets back and forth to exchange all of the information exchanged in a 15 WPM CW contact. It uses about the same amount of bandwidth but takes more time than FT8 to pass enough packets for a cw style conversation. So when you can't hear anything on 15m and up but noise and static, try 30m FT8, 20m FT8, 6m FT8 in the day and 80m FT8 and 40m FT8 at night. It is really a lot of fun when the band's not too crowded. The whole FT8 segment with hundreds of contacts is about the same as one SSB slot. And if you find out who the robot is let me know, as my FT8 station requires me to be there 100% of the time to start the QSO. 73's and good DX in whatever mode you like. Tom K5VOU As Brother Dave Gardner said; "Let those that don't want none have memories of not gettin' any" Whatever it is.
I would love to run the Boston Marathon as well, so since I can not do it they should make things equal for me, equally achievable. I want to participate too. Thats what makes things worth wild in life , not everyone is going to be able to do everything, that is what showcases people achievements and abilities, gives each one of us something to strive for. This is more than Amateur Radio, it is life. I run compromised antennas on 160 because I can not put up a 1/4 wave fed tower so because things just are not fair maybe I should resort to using "assistance" . There will be no Winning with the compromised croud, because as long as the ARRL $$ and others get the attention they request and drop the standard, its good for business. Well because no one is participating lets just let all the Technicians have HF privileges, and it goes on and on, soon enough Amateur Radio will be open book, no standards , no skill , no engineering, no principal. To all my 6 Meter "Legacy" friends participating in the BBQ, have a great time, share the great memories of amazing QSO's and tell W5OZI Sir Pat I send a hello ! Best Wishes , have fun. 73 de KB3RHR
Off topic here but as is so often lately I am compelled to step in and remind folks that while HOA is an acronym---ham(s)---is not, I repeat---not an acronym of any sort! The term "ham" came about many decades ago when new telegraph operators were often "ham-fisted" operators as they were just starting out. So after a while, newcomers to radio were simply dubbed "hams" or "ham operators" and the term stuck. I know there are other theories about how "ham" came about but this seems the most plausible to me. Please, let's keep it intact. This ham and many others will thank you! As for the 6m BBQ; wish I could attend as I was once a big gun out in the Pacific on my favorite band. I made half a dozen 6m firsts from KH6 and worked lots of longpath to EU, Africa and Asia (all via ssb) which will always be the highest points of my ham career. Although I'm only three and a half hours away from Austin I wouldn't feel comfortable leaving our home during the peak of hurricane season---last year's Cat 4 developed very rapidly and nearly wiped our town off the map. Barely prepared, we managed to evacuate in the nick of time. Hope it is great fun and educational for all that do manage to make it! 73, Jeff PS: Reminder: September VHF Contest this weekend; I'll be working 6m phone from semi-rare grid EL18 if anyone needs.
