After 5500+ JT65 contacts I figured I'd try FT8

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I tried, but dorked up the settings for my 7100/Pi3 and then got distracted with HFAPRS.  I've never made a JT/FT contact.  Putting it on the to-do list!

It's a lot faster paced than JT-65 but also more automated

I worked 62 stations last night
Most were U.S. States....been taking a break from DX.

FT8 has made the whole award status thing a lot different.
A new ham could crank out a mixed WAS in a few days with a half decent station.

So nice to be able to grab a -24dB station out of the noise.

Ive now work Mr. Taylor himself twice....once on JT65 and more recently on FT8.
It was super cool to get his QSL card in the mail.

I and worked 20 states and 19 countries today
One was even a new one for me (and they already confirmed)

A lot of folks seem to be running automated, real time uploads to LOTW & EQSL.

https://www.ar15.com/forums/outdoors/So-that-FT8-thing-/22-690317/

https://www.ar15.com/forums/Outdoors/new-to-FT8/22-691589/?page=1&anc=bottom#bottom

It's a fast exchange, time slotted digital mode with quasi-automated response processing once the QSO starts.

It's efficient, and a little addictive for simple QSOs for award chasing.

Complete QSO takes a couple of mouse clicks and 1 minute or a little more (15 second time slots).

You need a computer & radio set up for digital modes, suitable software (either WSJT-X or JTDX), and importantly, a way to time synchronize your computer. Your computer's timekeeping really needs to be within 0.5 seconds, within 0.2 is best. As the time error goes over 1/2 second it becomes progressively more difficult to complete contacts. The way to do this is to use software that time synchronizes the computer with an internet time server or a GPS receiver.

I use an <$10 "VK172" USB GPS receiver from ebay along with BKTTimeSync software in Windows. I got the GPS receiver set up on Linux also but can't find the tutorial I used.

It is possible with some trial and error to set your computer clock manually using WWV as a reference, or even just listening to a busy FT8 band, and get to under 1/2 second accuracy. I did this to start with, but it became pretty frustrating to go through the whole routine every time I wanted to use FT8, so the $10 USB receiver was well worth it.

I use Dimension 4 software for time sync.  You can set it to sync every 15 minutes with a randomly selected NTP server (it has a large built in list) and that keeps it under 0.2s based on the corrections it says it makes.

It runs as a service so there's never any worry about starting it.

You pretty much had to do this, since FT8 has effectively killed JT65. It was amazing how quickly that happened, too. It seemed like everyone changed in less than a week's time.

This

In just 3 days I have

38 Confirmed States
21 Confirmed Countries

Now at 4 days I have

42 Confirmed States
29 Confirmed Countries

49 Worked states
59 Worked countries

It's too easy, isn't it? I think they should make you get two confirmed FT8 contacts from each state before the award an FT8 WAS

Its gotten to the point that most of the "digital" awards are worthless. I would suggest specific FT8 awards, unless there already is some.

FT8 is almost so easy that I see it getting boring quickly.

I run three monitors so I just put it on a side screen
and let it run When I see a new one I just click on it.

I would like to get WAS via SSTV some day.
That one I know will be a challange

I believe that one is a digital only award.

I don't chase the paper as I'm too cheap to pay for a piece of paper.
I do it for the fun of it and just to know I did it.

I was working on getting all states on all bands with JT65 and I'm mostly
there but at this point JT65 is pretty much done so I dont see that happening.

I just started on FT8 myself.
I made a couple contacts over the last week or so just to confirm that I understood how it worked, but today I got serious.

However, instead of shooting fish in a barrel and running power and using my main station antennas, I am using a KX2 running five watts into an LNR precision magnetic loop which is sitting on my front porch on a camera tripod.

I have made two contacts so far after calling perhaps 30 stations.

FWIW: I predict that this will be a fad that blows over in six months (on HF).

It'll be a year come July

Well, you get my point:

Digital mode software has evolved to the point where if you are running a typical station (wire antenna, 100 watts..........) you can basically work anything you can decode.
You can get on a mode like this and in one good weekend work all states or come very close. Plus lots of common DX countries.
There is very little challenge in it.
It isn't all that entertaining once the novelty wears off.  I mean, it is almost automated. Other than clicking on the station you want to work, the rest of the QSO and confirmation takes care of itself.

Digital modes arn't for everyone. But the people who are into stuff like this will quickly get WAS. They will probably quickly get multiple band WAS. They will quickly work most of the common DXCC entities.........then what ? Then they move onto something else.

I am often wrong and this could be yet another example of me being wrong, but...............my prediction is not that the mode just dries up and goes away; but it's current level of popularity will die off in six months or so. There will still be people on there, but a fraction of what there is now.

Don't get me wrong. I am not a hater. I am having fun with this just like everybody else. But, I just can't see something like this remaining anywhere near as popular as it is now. Modes like this will be wonderful for weak signal applications as well as guys running QRP or people with very compromised antennas.

I have played with PSK-31 before

I need to look into some modes that handle QRM and weak signal strengths.

It would be nice to have a fairly common mode for all to use for emergencys etc

Wait till FT8call/messenger comes out.  It's going to be truly a game changer.

When I first read this, I thought, "Man, this guy's a hater."  But, since I tried FT8 last fall, I haven't logged a single contact since Sept 24th.  I loved using JT65 and JT9, "watching paint dry", with my KX3 and LNR EndFed.  It was relaxing, and a bit challenging.  After 14, yes, FOURTEEN, FT8 contacts, I lost interest and moved on to play with some of my other hobbies.  Away from ham radio.  Coincidence?  I don't think so.  More power to those that like FT8.  Have fun.  Just my 2 cents.
BD

Details???

will it be a open QSO type system?

Is this something that is in the works ? Or is this just speculation that something like this will be developed ?

It would be a game changer.

This whole digital HF mode thing is very interesting and exciting. For decades, there were very few "machine" based digital modes with RTTY being by far the most popular. Then along came PSK-31 (and "sound card modes") and it took the amateur radio world by storm just like FT-8 did this past year. In the mean time there were a whole lot of other digital modes, very few of which had a big following other than JT-65 (which I have had a lot of fun on over the years).  But then Joe Taylor upped the game with JT-9 and now FT-8. I am going to call FT-8 a "super mode". It is incredible and like I said: it is so good that it ALMOST isn't fun because it works so well. And it is certainly possible, and even likely that Joe, or someone else, is going keep going with this to something even better.

As an example of how these newer digital modes have changed the face of communications: at one time, moon bounce required massive antennas and legal limit power. You had to make a MAJOR commitment to the hobby to make a contact via the moon; when they were using CW or occasionally with really massive stations, SSB. In todays world, it is possible to make moon bounce contacts using a single Yagi antenna and 100 watts; running some of the latest digital modes. Granted, the guy on the other end needs to be using big antennas, but he can hear and decode your peanut whistle station.

I sort of hate the JT modes, and now FT8. I hate them because they have effectively killed off all of the other modes.

Back in the heady days of the last sunspot minima, say around the late 2000's, PSK31 was the king of digital award chasing. The nice thing about PSK31 is that it could just as easily be a chat/rag chew/QSO mode. This, along with lousy SSB phone conditions, motivated people to type at each other and explore the plethora of other modes. Then the sunspots came back and JT65 hit the street. Within a period of months PSK31 QSOs of all types dried up to a great degree, and hearing other modes became rarer than hen's teeth. Then FT8 hit the street and it was everything that JT65 should have been from day one: fast, and automated. It killed JT65 in a manner of days.

If by "FT8call" you mean an FT8 version of FSQCall, then that would be very interesting. Is the mode going to support longer messages than 13 characters? Will it still support simultaneous decode in multi-KHz bandwidth? If so, then combined with the FSQCall messaging layer it would be pretty damn cool.

Yeah, I agree with you that it is a shame that there isn't much activity on some of these other modes. In particular, PSK31.

As you said; you can have an actual conversation on PSK31 instead of just exchanging signal reports. Over the years, I have had a lot of QSOs on PSK31 where guys just sent their macros, but I have also had quite a few actual conversations. In fact, I think the last PSK31 contact I made was a fairly long keyboard to keyboard conversation and at the end, the guy thanked me for not just having a cookie cutter/pre-loaded conversation.

I think there is a place for all these various digital modes. It is just a question of what you are trying to accomplish when you get on the air. Some times I want to have a conversation and other times I don't. I used to work a lot of JT65 early in the mornings: I got up up 0445. I purposely always get up early for work so that I can take my time getting ready and also so I can sit down and have a couple cups of coffee. I used to sit down at the rig, drink coffee, check my email, see what has been posted online............and at the same time I was working JT65. It was the perfect mode where I could be doing other things at the same time and it didn't require a lot of thought. FT8 wouldn't have been a good mode for this and neither would PSK31. But JT65 was just right.

Another thing about PSK31 is that I run that with FLDIGI which is truly a work of art as far as software is concerned. There are so many great aspects of FLDIGI. But like you say, with the decreased use of PSK and other modes besides FT8, I don't get to use it as much as I would like.

It is not speculation, I will chime back once the beta is out.

FWIW, my only HF antenna is a G5RV mounted in an inverted V on a 30 foot mast.

Since i'm height limited, even with FT8, it can be a challenge to work some stations.  I may be able to hear them, but they can't hear me.  Even if I crank the power up to 100 watts.

I did have an FT8 QSO this morning with a Ukranian ham who was /MM on a ship off the coast of New Britain!  8454 mile away.  But, I couldn't work a ham in the US Virgin Islands or in Massachusetts!

Well....yeah, you are not going to be able to work everybody. That is part of the fun of it.

The other guy may have bad local noise. Or he may be using a lousy receiver. Or he may be using a lousy antenna: your antenna is good enough to hear him but he can't hear you. Or you may have an issue with over-driving your audio and he copies your signal but he can't decode it............................
Or it could be that he just didn't want to work you.
With JT-Alert, he sees that he doesn't "need" you, so he ignores you. Living in Ohio, I am sure that a lot of people see me call them and say; not another Ohio station..................  FWIW: I just got started on FT-8 and am using 5 watts and an LNR Precision mag loop antenna which is sitting on my front porch. I have called a ton of DX stations and very few of them answered me. However, when I go to PSK Reporter, I can see that they are hearing me. I know that when I lived in Nevada, I used to get on JT65 and would work one Japanese station after another. There were times that every single signal I was decoding was from Japan. I took a picture of my waterfall once and sent it to a friend of mine in the Eastern US who didn't believe me; every station that I was decoding was Japanese. At one point, I decided that after I worked 20 Japanese stations in a sitting, I was going to shut the radio off and go do something else. Who knows how many hundreds of contacts I made with Japan but I ended up getting burnt out on it. I didn't think it was right to just ignore them but I wanted to work something else: I was actually trying to get WAS on JT65 myself and didn't want to work DX.

When I used to live in Nevada I worked a guy on HF and he asked if I was going to participate in the upcoming 160 meter contest. I told him that I had a really lousy antenna for 160. He said, "well, you being in Nevada is probably worth 20 decibels in signal strength".  In other words, I lived in a fairly rare state and everybody would want to work me: so they would take all the time and use all the filtering...........to pull my signal out of the mud. There might only be a very few people in Nevada in the contest.  Where someone from somewhere like Ohio they might just keep tuning. They will get plenty of Qs from Ohio.

But, a G5RV at 30 feet and 100 watts should be able to easily work anything in the world if propagation cooperates. FWIW: I achieved QRP DXCC in 60 days using a similar wire antenna at about 30 feet running 5 watts. Granted, conditions were better than they are now, but your station is definitely capable.

@jhlewis10: I just found this. Is there any way to provide inputs/suggestions to the developer(s)? Any discussion group or mailing list?

TAG.  This sounds very interesting.

It's kind of surprising there isn't an app to sync the GPS in your smartphone to your PC, via Bluetooth or a USB cable.

Agreed.  That's the fun of it.  What I meant by my original statement was a counterpoint of the "FT8 is like shooting fish in a barrel."  FT8 can definitely be a challenge.

For example, I had a challenge yesterday of working hams in Chile and Brazil on 10M FT8 with terrible 10M propagation.  It took a little while, but I was able to work them and add them to the logbook.

Although I will put in for awards if I earn them, chasing awards is not my focus.  What I do is to call CQ.  If I don't get any answers, I then work other stations that are calling CQ.  I like making contacts on FT8 and I like the challenge of working some stations, like you said, that may not have a good antenna or bad noise floor.  I did get a kick out of working FT8 QRP last summer with a ham in Ohio!

Thanks!  I'm planning on trying to elevate the antenna a little higher, maybe up to 50 feet.

There is an app called 'Share GPS' that looks like it may do that.

Why not just have the software automatically set your computer's clock, by "listening" to other FT8 stations on the air?

I would think someone could write a program to time sync to WWV or other time stations.

The software developer says he doesn't want to complicate the software by building in time syncing functionality.

Since the software is calculating time offsets anyway it would seem pretty trivial to run a mathematical algorithm on them to come up with a correction factor for the PC clock. There's a big problem with that scenario though... if that was in there, then everyone would use it instead of taking the trouble to implement some other time sync system. And if everyone is using a system that is not bound to some external time reference, then the community time sync will start drifting all over the place in response to off-time stations.  You'd end up with some oscillation or ebb and flow kind of thing which would really defeat the purpose.

I do think the software should have the functionality to change it's time sync temporarily to match the time of a station calling CQ when replying to that station. Then again if you can do that manually when others can't or don't think to, it can give you an advantage if it's a desirable station.

Looks like "GPS 2 Bluetooth" and "Bluetooth GPS Output" may also do it.

If everyone on the air observes the same "collective" time, what difference does it make if it moves around a bit?

At any given instant, you'd probably have a few "time purists" helping to herd the rest of us knuckleheads back on spec anyway...

Because then you make it impossible to make contacts on nearly empty bands.

I guess I must be missing something here...

We're talking about drifting off "official" time - not drifting off frequency.

It's not possible to receive an FT8 transmission if your time is off by too much. More than 1/2 second starts to degrade reception notably, about 1.5 to 2 seconds it becomes impossible even on very good signals. If you're trying to pull in a signal on an otherwise empty band and you're 3 seconds off from the other station because neither one of you is attached to an absolute time reference, you cannot make contact.

If folks can't do time sync, then use PSK31, Olivia or some other mode that does not require time syncronization, it's that simple.

I'm as anal as the next guy with respect to time sync, and run Meinberg NTP, which is way more accurate than Dimension 4. BUT...a WWV manual time hack on your PC clock is MORE than adequate to get the job done, and if for some ungodly reason you can't do that then it is trivial to fudge your clock just by looking at the WSJT-X waterfall display.

So quit stressing about time sync and just get on with it!

As I mentioned before, I did that when I first started on FT8. My computer's clock drifted a lot though, and I'd have to go through the routine of trying to get it set accurately enough every time I wanted to get on the radio which became a real PITA. It is a handy skill to have, as on occasion I've piped the audio from a WebSDR receiver to WSJT-X software to listen to signals from a remote receiver (even monitored my own signals). The nature of the WebSDR was that the audio was delayed a couple seconds from reality so you have to set that computer's clock manually by using the FT8 streams as a reference.