The reported death of Amateur Radio due to FT8 is an exaggeration

During this past Saturday's NAQP SSB, I didn't find much of any "open bandwidth" on any active (non-10m, non-WARC) band. Overlapping signals on 20m and 40m consistently.

John
N9OU

 

Yep. Contests ALWAYS pack the bands.

Dave
W7UUU

 

I Love too contest its a challenge to run against the big guns and if it gets more activity on the bands I am all for it. Also if you like to chase the paper
contest are a great way to get that new state or county or island or grid or country. I use all the modes and bands that my license and wallet say I can
and sometimes I even chew the rag with other hams can you imagine that , I just like amateur radio every facet of it! I dont think a person could live long enough to do it all in ham radio but I sure HAM trying LoL, looking forward to the next contest and or the next mode or the next technology 73's HamBoys Dah Dit Dah Dit Dah Dah Dit Dah

 

Lets try not to be so USA-centric in our discussions. I don't think that the USA could unilaterally cut / slice/ or dice any HF band without affecting other countries. The very nature of HF would preclude any country doing that. VHf and above is an entirely different story. But in this case unless I totally missed the point, the debate is about FT8 on the HF bands.

It is, unfortunately, well within the ability of the IARU to gut our allocations at the next WARC meeting. Lately, we have seen an increase in HF allocations, not a decrease. Some of this is due to the various member societies, like the ARRL, lobbying efforts and some of it is probably due to the fact that most "non-ham" interests see little advantage to using HF. That too, might change but I for one am not going to lose any sleep worrying about it.

 

The US can back out of its allocation agreements.

Where have you been for two years...vis a vis US abrogating several key international agreements?

:-> ?

 

But that's the problem--

The 'duty-cycle' is low and clumped. Clumped is interpreted as being 'unessential use'.No one outside of ham radio buys into this notion that such clumped activity meets key aspects of the Part 97 mission.

Should they?

Yes, I think so.

The idea of sprints-- weekday contests-- is one way to get past the 'clumped' criticism.

Getting OTA on a regular basis is far better.

 

Seriously. Someone PLEASE remind me.

When PSK31 became all the rage back in back in, what? The late 1990's? Was there also this never ending string of flaming controversy as there is now with this FT8 stuff? In fact, replace my query of PSK31 with ANY OTHER topic of choice of and about ham radio, and remind me if it's caused this kind of endless attention.

To whatever end dear Onno. This IS NOT one of your better posts, Sparky.

73, you all

 

Yaaaaaawn

G3SEA/KH6

 

QRZ, you can block this continual FT8 discussion any time now!

 

The reported death of Amateur Radio due to FT8 is an exaggeration

Told ya so.