I saw Cook Islands and Panama but couldn't get them.

In the log so far, Belize, New Caledonia, Russia, New Zealand and Australia.

I had to use 60W to get them and I'm probably at the upper limit of what my T140-43 ferrite can handle, but it's pretty exciting!

Just got Columbia.

Like you, I've been having a lot of success on 20m FT8 in the evenings. Hearing more DX stations than I think I ever have. I'm seeing decodes from China, Kazakhstan, Indonesia, New Zealand, Australia, Fiji, New Caledonia, Kuwait, Romania, Finland, Sardinia, etc. all around the same time.

I listened to a mobile in NZ talk to a guy in UK on 20m last night. There was lots of DX happening. A guy in France gave me an honest 57 last night.

Khazakhstan, Fiji, Romania and Sardinia I haven't seen yet.

I saw Cook Islands, Russia (both Europe and Asia), and a few others.  Still nothing from the African continent for me so far.  Saw Italy and England last night.

I got New Caledonia and Finland in the log.  I think it's like one guy in Finland because every time I see them it's no longer highlighted as a new call sign.

Tell me about FT8; pretend that I’m retarded.

It's a poor signal mode which uses a laptop and various programs to encode and decode RF into shortened text.

FT8 has become the digital mode of choice of the majority of amateur radio operators worldwide.
It is a so called "weak signal mode", however not all FT8 signals are weak.  It is able to decode a signal up to -24 dB below the noise floor in a 2.5 khz bandwidth. Each signal in that bandwidth is 50 hz wide .  As you can see the typical FT8 (Franke Taylor 8 bit) signal is narrow enough to allow a lot of signals in a typical SSB "channel" of bandwidth.  There are additional "sub protocols" within the framework of FT8, notably so called Fox and Hound mode and MSHV mode that can be utilized.

FT8 contrary to popular opinion does require operator "intervention" Mouse clicking and such to make it work and to make a contact with a station, although much of the operations are and can be automated, even logging of these stations. The mode is hated and despised and ridiculed by many, but the amateur radio community has voted with their feet, and FT8 activity comprises the bulk of all amateur radio operation. Far more on a day to day basis than ANY one mode, and likely far more than ALL modes combined. And that includes CW and SSB.

FT8 is NOT a conversational mode. You can pass limited information to the other station, in a structured manner, but you will not sit down and have a "ragchew" with the other station. It is analogous to a CW or SSB DX contact. Just the minimum information, no fluff, no ragchew, nothing else.

It's primary adherents are interested in working DX of one kind or another. Whether that is working and collecting countries, states or grid squares.
If your primary focus it talking to people whether that be by CW or SSB, than FT8 IS NOT for you.

It has taken the place on some bands almost entirely replacing CW and SSB on 6 meters as 6 meters was nearly always about DXing to begin with. Now it is about FT8 DXing, almost entirely.  This has cause "discomfort" to some operators that miss the CW and SSB operation.  There is nothing to prevent amateurs from operation CW SSB or any other mode, but the "there is no one left to play with me anymore" crowd, does not like the fact that so many have migrated to this mode.

The mode was started in July of 2017 mainly to replace other digital modes and has, judging by the numbers participating, has achieved that goal.

If you would like specifics on getting started in the mode you can contact me privately if you wish, and we can speak on the phone.  I have helped hundreds get on and understand the mode,  To the point of being hated by some. If you do go down this road, and publicly embrace the mode, you run the risk of losing some "friends".  That were likely not friends to begin with.  

73  James K0UA

As mentioned it's a narrow bandwidth weak signal mode. It leverages the power of your computer to decode signals that are well below the signal to noise ratio that is necessary to carry out a SSB, or occasionally a CW QSO. It uses a fixed message format that exchanges callsigns, grid location, and signal report (in dB), and that's it. It's pretty much fully automated, and as such gets frowned upon by the curmudgeons as not "real" radio (much the same way the CW guys frown upon the noobs using SSB). It useless as a way to actually communicate any meaningful information, but it's great if you want to fill your logbook with DX contacts. The software does all the heavy lifting and makes the signals so robust that pretty much any station, no matter how poorly configured can make long distance contacts. You can work the world with nothing more than a 1 watt radio and a 6ft piece of wire. Probably the biggest advantage of FT8 that I see anyway, is that it's the best reverse beacon system in the world. You can make a single 15 second CQ call and instantly see where in the world your signals are reaching by using the PSK Reporter website to search for your callsign.

ETA: K0UA beat me too it. Well said...

Many hams eschew FT8 and belittle anyone's achievements on this mode, because they are bored by it or have never seen it and heard rumors about and/or have never explored the tips and tricks to "win" while using it.

If you were mesmerized by watching the waterfall in the submarine sonar station operated in the movie "The Hunt for Red October", you will like FT8. Some hams equate it to "watching paint dry", and want NOTHING to do with this mode. I say GOOD!, more DX for me!.

While MANY operate this mode, only a small percentage fully understand it and know how to win.  Just like in a DX pileup, many call, but only a few win.  I have seen every manner of FT8 "faux paus" committed by mankind. Some of them are real "doozies". But the smart operators do not do that.  It is the same with chasing DX on CW and SSB. Lots of lids, and a few smart guys. But opinions are like ********, everyone has one and they all stink!  I have my opinions and others have theirs.

Some FT8 decodes from yesterday.  Works well enough to call someone a lid.


220717_154015    14.074 Rx FT8    -11 -0.5 1401 K5EW LIDQSY
220717_154045    14.074 Rx FT8    -19 -0.5 1401 K5EW LID
220717_185600    50.313 Rx FT8     -2 -0.3 1999 N1BAT URALID

220717_190600    50.313 Rx FT8     -5 -0.4  408 GO ORIOLES


Saturday when I checked 6m I noticed that some locals were contesting I made some contacts so they could score a point.  Then I knew to check 50.125 occasionally for some phone activity.  I did make a phone contact with one of the guys I answered on FT8.


220717_190015    50.313 Rx FT8     10 -0.5  431 NZ2E 144174           Some random QSO telling the other station to switch bands for another contact for the contest.

Time 2253 at Jul 18 2022..  Friend of mine worked HI on 50.313 FT8.  I didn't print him. But I don't need HI on anything.  I still need AK on 6 meters though.

What were K5EW and N1BAT doing to draw all the negative attention?

Looking further back in the log I see VA7QI was calling CQ EU  on 1401. K5EW responded, didn't get a QSO.  Then begin calling CQ on the same.

It looks like K3TC was calling N1BAT repeatedly but he wouldn't respond maybe.???  I didn't get any tx from N1BAT so I don't know if he even bothered.

I'm new to it so still learning.  

I downloaded and read the ft8 operating guide yesterday and realized I wasn't doing some "best practices", which I immediately corrected.

I have run into some DX stations that I just can't get to respond.  I checked PSK Reporter and my signal was getting into those areas around -10 to -16.  I usually stop after 1 or 2 cycles if I don't get a response and try again a few minutes later.  I hope some newbie faux pas hasn't got me blacklisted.

I have been trying to adjust power output based on the signal reports.  I've been running around 20w by default which seems to work well with -5 to -10 dB reports from most stations, and increasing to 60W if I get back a less than -15 report.  I will reduce to 5W (lowest my FT-450D will go) if I get a report in the positive range.  I also think it's possible some stations have a much higher noise floor.  I get decodes of -24 sometimes, but replies from sub -18 stations are hit or miss, even when I increase to 60W.

It's the stations that come in at +5 here that ignore my replies to their non specific CQ two or three times at increasing power levels that baffle me.  I wish there was an option to add them to a filter list so I never see them in the decodes again.

Then there are the people who are grid square or county hunting.  In my area there are few hams, fewer on HF, and even fewer on digital (I might be the only one in my grid square) so I have been calling CQ a bit to help fill out other people's logbooks that need my area.  I got thanked for my county yesterday, which was a first.

In spite of early mistakes, I've managed to get 34 states towards WAS in a week's time, and 10 DXCC entities.

There are folks with noise floors so high (middle east and some of Asia) that you could run 10,000 watts and they may not hear you, yet you can decode them reliably.

They call CQ and don't decode any answers. They don't know about PSK reporter and have no idea where their signals are heard and how well. So their thinking is, if I don't get an answer to my CQ, then I need to increase power.  WRONG!.

use your head and find out where your signals are going. So they increase power and keep on calling CQ. They get a few answers from the stronger stations in the world, and they think they are operating correctly. They think that this is what FT8 operation looks like. They have no idea.

If you are not getting 50 decodes on 20 meters each cycle during prime weekend time, you are not hearing much. It is so easy to look these guys on on PSK reporter and see them lighting up the entire world all in the last 15 minute segment with hundreds of stations reporting hearing them. and then go look at what they are hearing.  A dozen decodes from the strongest stations in Europe. Then you start to understand the magnitude of the problem. POOR operators. Lack of knowledge of the tools out there to make you a good operator.

Always look at where you are going and what you are hearing.

This type of operation is like firing a .300 Winmag blindly into the forest and hoping to hit a deer. And makes about as much sense. And if your signals are heard all over the world, and you are maybe hearing signals from your region, then it is time to go QRP and quit pissing of people.

Sometimes there are such things as one way propagation paths where the paths get skewed and are not reciprocal. In other words you signals in response to a signal enters at such an angle etc that it won't get to the other end. BUT this is more rare than the fact that the noise levels in some areas are just horrible.

What can these guys do if they have abysmal noise problems?

My first instinct, especially since it's mostly 20m, would be a mag loop antenna.  Very narrow band, but perfect for digital since you are operating in a very narrow band, and not changing frequency.  It would act as it's own bandpass filter, and especially if you ran a dedicated antenna just for digital, you could get away with a lightweight wire loop and maybe even a few fixed value capacitors if everything works out right.  (You'd have to use a variable one to get tuned and then swap in the measured fixed value, along with some trial and error to account for stray capacitance changes from one configuration to the other.  But then you'd have a permanently tuned antenna right where you need it that rejects a ton of what you don't need before the receiver even sees the signal.

It's just not so good if you want to go up a few K and work SSB.  Even with a variable cap the tuning is so sharp on them it's a hassle.

But short of moving or giving up radio as a pastime, what can they do?

An interesting situation occurred tonight.  I had a guy keep replying 3 or 4 times with a signal report as if he wasn't receiving my RR73.  I looked at the waterfall to make sure nobody had fired up on my freq or his.  I was around 1400 and he was down around 600.  

I figured I might be just on the edge of his passband and moved to a clear spot a little above him and got the next sequential 73 reply from him.  I figured this had to be it because our signal reports were both reasonable.

This happens more than you might think.  Many guys have no idea what their passband is. I know this because I have asked many newbies that I have helped what their filter passband is.  Filter passband?.  yeah, what are your filters set for?  I don't know. What is a filter? Now on some rigs the filter is fixed at what ever the manufacture put in for SSB, and that is that, but many rigs, even those without waterfalls can vary their passband width. But an awful lot of users have no concept of this. Hence if you call them "off frequency" they may not hear you. They are not taking advantage of the panoramic reception of FT8. Or their rigs in digital mode are geared towards the old RTTY days of having a narrow passband.

If on the waterfall on a busy band like 20 meters or 40 meters you are not getting decodes and seeing stations from around 200 to 2800 Hertz then you have a problem on your end. You are missing many callers.

As an aside to that, I have spent hours showing guys over the phone how to set up their passband filters and on Icom's what the twin passband filter controls do. Then the next question is often "what are the twin passband filter's used for".  That can be another 2 hour discussion. Just because a radio has all of these wonderful options an ways that it can be set up doesn't mean people know how to use them.

The best thing to do is to mitigate the noise at its source. Which may or may not be possible.

Ran into another passband issue tonight.  

I had a guy who responded to a CQ and someone started transmitting right where I was slotted in, so I moved up a few hundred Hz and then the guy kept sending the same response over and over, and I kept responding wondering why he wasn't hearing me.  Well he was way down around 600 Hz and I was over 2500 Hz so I moved down to a clear spot right next to him and like magic, he had the correct next sequence.

I need to make a CHK PASSBND macro.

I wouldn't have moved if that one guy hadn't come in right on top of me, and I forget that not everyone can decode from 0 to 3kHz.

If your issue is low RF power output on edges of the waterfall it could be easily fixed with the "Fake It" option in WSJT-X for rig control. This will keep your radio in the sweet spot when transmitting FT8 as it will will shift your TX frequency by plus or minus 500 hz allowing full output regardless where you are on the FT8 waterfall. I mentioned using Eterlogic's VSPE for COM port sharing in a different post of yours and I think using "Fake It" may help you out.

Attached File


I don't have issues when running my FT-891 and FTDX-10 on HF while simultaneously running multiple programs like WSJT-X, JTAlert or my logging program that all depend on rig control. YMMV  

This is default behavior of WSJTX. When a station responds to a CQ, it switches to the calling stations transmit freq to respond in turn.


It will stay there until the operator selects a new station to respond to, or manually selects a new 50 kHz segment.

The way to prevent this is to check the box “hold TX freq”, which is disabled by default.

This was another "gotcha" for me also. Split operation is the only way to run FT8 as the bands are so damned crowded.

But doesn't that 500 Hz split run the risk of dropping your signal right on top of another QSO?  

Just to be sure I understand correctly, this feature is designed to move the passband around your audio tx frequency to try to keep it centered so you don't get any attenuation from being too close to filter skirts?

It only shifts during TX to keep you in the center of your radio's crystal filter passband. When the program goes back to RX it's still in the same spot you were decoding at. Split operation is the only way to work FT8 especially at QRP power.

All “fake it” does is switch your radio VFO between transmit and receive periods.


“Rig” leverages the built in split operating capability of your radio.



In either case WSJTx is setting your dial freq to keep the selected transmit and receive frequencies in the middle of your filter passband.

You can certainly see the difference when using "Fake It" as the power output does not drop off on the band edges.  Split is the key to putting contacts in the logbook on a busy FT8 band.

So on the other station's receiver there is no net change in your TX frequency on their waterfall? You select a spot to TX, say 2500 Hz and even though the radio shifts the RF frequency, the audio frequency is still going to be 2500 Hz if that's what you select on your end?

I also read in the FT8 operating guide that you are better off selecting a higher audio frequency so there is less space in the passband for audio harmonics in case you are overdriving the audio into the radio, but it seems like this would negate that.  But maybe not if the other station still sees the same audio frequency.

Looks like I might want to hook up the dummy load and try the split feature to see if my radio will play nice with it.  I know the radio is capable of split operation.

I wish I could screen capture how this works for you, because if you could see me making a contact using split mode with "Fake It" enabled it would be clear.  

It does not change the actual frequency of the transmitted signal. It moves the audio frequency and radio frequency in opposite directions by equal amounts, so the actual transmitted frequency is not changed at all. The increment by which the frequencies change is always an exact multiple of 500 Hz. It does this in order that the audio frequency the sound card sends to the radio will always be in the 1500-2000 Hz range regardless of where you choose to transmit in the waterfall.

This helps avoid unwanted spurious signals caused by audio harmonics, and also avoids gain variations near the edges of the transmitter's IF bandpass that might otherwise result in different power outputs at different points in the waterfall.

So the software is subtracting 500hz from the audio you selected while adding 500hz to the RF frequency for a net zero change in AF at the receiving station but a more centered AF on your end?

Read my edited post above.

Ah okay!   Thanks for the detailed explanation and it does make sense now.  I am going to give this a try tomorrow evening after work.  

I am so sorry for the confusion. I could do better with video "show and tell" than a typing wall a text.

I really need to find a Windows capture program and learn how to edit. I would love to make a few "how to" tutorials to help guys on this forum.

DMR radio, MMDVM hotspots, and FT8 setup issues come to mind as the most frequently posted questions here.

It is quick and easy to just use fake it.  Fake it is the most inaptly named feature of WSJT-x. It SHOULD be default.
it has nothing to do with "faking it".  I always reccoment for all the users I have helped to just use "fake it".  

The only times I have not used fake it to keep your transmitted signal in the sweet spot of your modulator is "back in the day" when JA hams on 160 meters could not operate on 1840 Khz.  They would listen on 1840 and transmit above 1900 Khz.  You have to set up split with A and B VFO to split that far and hear them way up there on 1910 or so and transmit on 1840 which is our standard frequency.  I worked my first and many other JA's on 160 that way. It was almost a secret that only the "in crowd" knew at the time. It is a moot point now as they have access to transmit on 1840 Khz now.

So I messed around with both the rig and fake it options.  OmniRig doesn't like it, but if I allow WSJT-X to control the radio directly, it appears to work.

I did notice a lot of relay clicking sounds whenever I switched TX frequency in the waterfall.  This was apparently the software quickly programming the radio's VFO "B".  My issue is I had different DSP, IPO, and ATTsettingd in VFO B.  Once I set them to match VFO A, the relays stopped clicking every time I changed TX frequency in the software, but you do still see a quick flash on the radio's display as it switches to B to program the split frequency.

I didn't try the fake it option after switching from OmniRig to direct control, but it definitely wasn't working with the fake it or the rig split options.

I'm going to mess with the dummy load a bit more before trying it on the air but it looks like it will work fine.

I love FT8, but people randomly calling me when I'm hunting and not calling CQ is annoying.  

It comes and goes in cycles as for the volume of those, but jeeze I'm trying to work khazakstan and I have 3 stations slamming me with signal reports and I haven't called CQ in over a week.

 I'm not an absolute expert but ...Friggin' plebe's - and turn down your damn ALC, don't run over 75-100 watts when going for DX....Oh yeah and get off my lawn while you're at it.

Seriously though, I tend to try to help most of them and message them offline.    Not all, but many are new HAMS or new to FT8 and digital modes and I know I did a few annoying etiquette things the first few times.