I had limited time this weekend, and decided to operate only on 6 meters using only the new FT8 digital mode. I operated for only one hour on Saturday evening and three hours on Sunday, mostly in the afternoon.
My result was 70 QSOs in 35 grids. Of course it was much slower than CW and SSB but much faster than JT65 where the QSO rate would have been prohibitively slow. The number of QSOs could have been easily doubled with better propagation during the four hours when I was active. 22 QSOs were completed during which the FT8 software reported SNRs from my receiver below -10 dB. Some of these 22 QSOs may have been difficult to complete on CW. -11 dB 3 QSOs -12 dB 4 QSOs -13 dB 4 QSOs -15 dB 3 QSOs -16 dB 3 QSOs -17 dB 2 QSOs -18 dB 2 QSOs -19 dB 1 QSO There's an opportunity to significantly improve the FT8 contest QSO rate by introducing a Contest Mode that eliminates the 73 TX Message. In my opinion there's no need for the 73 TX Message in contests, if FT8 software doesn't receive the RRR message it automatically resends the previous TX message until the RRR message is received. If an RRR TX message is not received the QSO is not logged. This FT8 behavior is unambiguous with no need for the 73 TX Message. The 15 second sequences worked very well, there was never a need for additional delay between sequences because in almost every case when I started the next sequence a few seconds late the FT8 software decoded my transmission despite my delay. Better behavior of the automatic CQ reply function -- so that it functions exactly like double-clicking on the call of the station replying to a CQ -- would have eliminated most of those delayed TX messages It was a very enjoyable experience, kudos to the FT8 development team. 73 Frank W3LPL ______________________________________________________________ Elecraft mailing list Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm Post: mailto:[email protected] This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html Message delivered to [email protected]
