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 4th 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 4th 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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