Hi Dave, In my [very, very, extremely] limited experiences with any of the JT modes, it has always seemed to me that many are alligators. I think the FT8 craze has inspired a lot of people to get on 160 with compromise tx antennas -- this is a good thing -- but I'm not sure they realize how much they're missing on RX. I'm currently writing an article for a local club on simple RX antennas for this very reason (big ft8 crowd). If you try it on other bands, even 80 for example, you'll find your mileage *magically* improves. The program hears so well that even a stoopid rx antenna that only slightly pares down the noise would be fb for most.
As for your tribulations, I don't know enough about the mode to say too much, but it should be regularly better than CW, even factoring in the alligators. A local fellow here in WMA probably has 60+ cty on FT8 with only a compromise inverted-L and no RX. I know he's running >10 or 20W -- not sure if that's considered inordinate or not. Glad to hear your beverage noise is straightened out. 73 Mike N1TA On Sun, Apr 22, 2018 at 10:17 AM, David Olean <[email protected]> wrote: > I have been playing around with FT8 on 160M and am a bit puzzled. I have > made plenty of contacts, but with many stations, it seems to require an > inordinate amount of power to get their attention, or they do not respond at > all. I also have noted that I can hear in a 2.8 kHz passband, signals that > register from -12 to -17 dB. About the weakest that I see is a bit more than > -20 dB. Does this mean that FT8 is only a few dB better than CW? I have my > time set accurately and I try to place my TX signal away from whomever I am > calling on a clear spot on my waterfall. > > Some stations are easy to work, and I have worked across the country (FN43 > to a CM grid) running just 1 watt. It just seems that there are many > stations that are not hearing much, but are making plenty of noise. Am I > wrong? > > I am working on cleaning up my 160 setup and have 8 beverages running and > they are all pretty quiet now that I installed plenty of ferrite chokes > around on the RG-6 feed lines. I am looking forward to next fall and > winter. > > 73 > > Dave K1WHS > > _________________ > Topband Reflector Archives - http://www.contesting.com/_topband _________________ Topband Reflector Archives - http://www.contesting.com/_topband
