As noticed in my previous post, my experience was the fox was not
calling CQ every five minutes, but simply working station after station.
Seeing as how I could copy all his transmissions, I called him, and got
the QSO. I don't feel guilty about how I worked him. I figure as long as
I can copy him steadily and he is working stations calling, there is no
reason I should not call, as long as he is not working a specific area
that doesn't include the US.
That being said, I can't fault your idea that the fox should call CQ
every five minutes, but before I would force that to be mandatory, I'd
get input from the DXpedition to see if they think it was/should be
necessary. The one problem it could solve is stations calling blind who
can't hear the fox, but it would be nice to know if that is a real
problem. Judged by many years of SSB DXing, I have no doubts there are
stations who don't follow general guidelines, rules and regulations when
it comes to working DX, though.
John, WB9VGJ
John L. Broughton
www.wb9vgj.us
wb9...@arrl.net
2silverhon...@gmail.com
On 6/30/2018 8:57 AM, Black Michael via wsjt-devel wrote:
OK...so it appears the CQ every 5 trasnmissions is NOT enforced unless
Fox clicks the "More CQs" box.
We'd be a lot better off if this was always forced and Hounds were
restricted to only answer CQ's.
This explains why we don't see the CQ's and calling blind is normally
necessary (as long as you can see KH7Z that is).
if(m_tFoxTxSinceCQ>=m_foxCQtimeandui->cbMoreCQs->isChecked()){
de Mike W9MDB
On Saturday, June 30, 2018, 10:41:44 AM CDT, John Zantek
<j...@zantek.net> wrote:
Wholly concur with #2, but not necessarily #1, Mike. Yes, lots of
folks are calling in the blind. That’s not limited to FT8, guys.
But…
Depending on who’s running the digital tent (Don/Ned/?), rates of CQ
vary from every 10 minutes to generate some traffic down to NONE,
because there are stations calling. I have a pretty ideal QTH to work
Baker on any band, and I’m observing too much of the latter pattern.
I know there are lots of new folks sitting at their keyboards, waiting
for the CQ, not seeing one, then walking away. That’s not good, as it
just reduces the rate for Baker, and frustrates the new ham who’s a
potential DXer and digital apostle.
The QSB on 17M has been horrendous, with Baker’s sig, regardless of
mode, varying wildly here. On 17M, they were working the usual wall
of JA but I never did see a CQ, so I entered it manually and generated
the Std Msgs to work them successfully.
*From:*Black Michael via wsjt-devel
[mailto:wsjt-devel@lists.sourceforge.net]
*Sent:* Saturday, June 30, 2018 7:15 AM
*To:* 'WSJT software development' <wsjt-devel@lists.sourceforge.net>
*Cc:* Black Michael <mdblac...@yahoo.com>
*Subject:* Re: [wsjt-devel] Observation on Expedition Mode
I have some observations too.
#1 Tons of ops calling KH7Z when they can't see them. I assume this
only causes problems as it's quite possible KH7Z with their honker
antennas and can see them but not the other way round. So KH7Z will
put them in the queue and try to process them taking up the limited
slots they are using right now (2 from what I've seen). IMHO the
solution to this is pretty simple....when you turn on Hound or switch
bands you should be PREVENTED FROM TRANSMITTING UNTIL YOU GET CQ FRO
THE DX STATION. So, you would be required to double-click on a CQ
to allow transmitting. I noticed the the Baker team gave a lukewarm
endorsement of FT8 on their news update quite likely due to this problem.
#2 We need to turn on spotting for the DX station so that PSKReporter
and Hamspots can work and also so JTAlert can produce alerts when the
DX station is received. Don't need to spot the hounds of course.
Trying to figure out what band is good for local ops would be much
improved with automatic spotting for us and for the DX team who could
then see where their signal is going as more teams use internet on
site via satellite links.
de Mike W9MDB
On Saturday, June 30, 2018, 8:13:39 AM CDT, Grant Willis
<vk...@bigpond.com <mailto:vk...@bigpond.com>> wrote:
Joe,
An observation if I may about expedition mode. I see with KH1/KH7Z
that the number of Fox TX channels varies – I presume as they place
more stations in the queue. As expected, the power per channel drops
the more channels running so that the amplifiers can keep up. However,
this has an unintended consequence perhaps of potentially breaking
QSOs. A few times now I have started calling KH1/KH7Z on 20m when I am
receiving them around -09 (but with pretty low S-meter signal
strength). Usually this is with 1-2 channels running on their
downlink. If they go to 3 channels I can still receive but it falls to
say -15. If they bring up channel 4 and 5 I loose them. There just
isn’t the link budget left to receive them when the power is split
between more than 3 channels in this example.
Now the issue is, if they answer me by adding the 4^th channel – I
wont hear them under those conditions. If I am part way through a QSO
I can loose the RR73 for the same reason if they answer someone else
on the 4^th channel– simply because the link runs out of steam.
Now if I couldn’t hear them in the first place I wouldn’t have tried
calling. In this case however, they can disappear under load
effectively and I loose them mid QSO.
For future consideration perhaps is to have the setting of number of
channels vs the number of active channels maintain a constant PER
CHANNEL TX power rather than the variable situation we have now. Ie I
enable my fox station to run say 4 channels, but only reply on 1
channel, then the output power should be the equivalent of the power
that would be in that channel if all 4 were in fact on air but aren’t.
At least that way I have a constant link budget I am working with on
my comms channel with the fox station rather than one that can have
them drastically cut power mid QSO without reference to the conditions
on the path I am working them via.
If what I am describing is not how it is supposed to work already then
there is another factor at work somewhere in the chain to be explored.
I would be happy to discuss this further and use the KH1/KH7Z
expedition to observe and learn more about how the multi-channel
nature of the mode works.
Regards,
Grant VK5GR
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