DXpeditions - FT8, Split or not to split
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Having a great amount of success DXing on HF (363 countries, 7 band triple
DXCC, HR, etc) running low power, and
having already worked over 2800 QSOs in 117 DXCC countries on FT8 with 50-75
Watts, I believe that I have a pretty
good insight of what does and does not work when it comes to working DX in
general and working FT8 DX in particular.
It has been suggested that a DXpedition remain on one transmit frequency while
operating the FT8 mode and work split, listening over a wide range of
frequencies. If you are a DXer who has been around for a while, you probably
have suffered from the effects of DQRM (Deliberate QRM). It wouldn't take much
for a few frustrated DQRMers to double click on the DXpedition's fixed FT8
frequency and transmit garbage messages. They would make it next to impossible
for many callers to decode the DXpedition's FT8 transmissions. Then there is
the case of newbie FT8 ops click on the line of a caller, causing the newbie to
transmit during the same TX cycle as the DXpedition. I see it happening
now....I will see it again and again as even more new ops show up on FT8 to
work a new DXCC entity on a digital mode.
Because of this, I strongly recommend that future DXpeditions' FT8 operators
consider the following:
1) Check the "Lock Tx=Rx" box
2) UNCHECK the "Call 1st" box.
3) Check the "Auto Seq" box
With the "Lock Tx=Rx" box checked, when the DX clicks on the line of a caller,
he would QSY and call on the caller's relatively quiet (to the caller's ears)
TX frequency. Callers would try to pick a transmit frequency which appears to
be quiet during his station's receive cycle. That means when the DX station
replies to a caller, the caller would have a much better chance of decoding the
DX. This moving target would completely foil DQRMers ability to cause QRM to
the DXpedition.
Since the caller is decoding the entire passband, the DX station's
transmissions should be copied most of the time, no matter which frequency the
DXpedition transmits on.
Unchecking the "Call 1st" box would allow the DX station to call anyone he
wants, the strongest, the weakest, or callers being copied over a difficult
propagation path during a very short opening to that area.
With the "Auto Seq" box checked, the software would sequence through the QSO
steps, but only after the DXpedition op started the process manually by
selecting the station he wants to answer next.
I'll comment on the best frequencies to use in my next post.
73,
Rich - K1HTV
www.qrz.com/db/k1HTV
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