So I passed the General test today with 35/35.  Had to drive 2 hours each way, but I got it done.  When I got home, I messed around with my FT-450D for a little while and eventually made my first HF contact on 20 meters, working a guy in OH from my QTH in VA.  Good so far.

What I am puzzling over is this:  When trying to work digital modes, if you are turning the dial and hear a digital transmission, how do you know which mode it is?  I have been trying to decode signals with fldigi, but I don't know which mode to set the software to.

Thanks in advance for any advice.

MikeDeltaFoxtrot/AG

This is one of those practice makes perfect things, but there's a few ways.

Frequency -- most modes stick to certain frequencies. For example, PSK31 is used on 20M around 14070 KHz.

RSID -- one the more rare modes, if the transmitting station can send RSID, and some software like FLDIGI can pick that up and change modes based on that.

Sounds -- once you play around with it a while, you'll know stuff by ear, RTTY v. PSK31 v. FT8 v. Olivia sound wildly different. There's online libraries of sounds as well so you can get a feel for it.

If you do a search on "amateur radio digital mode sounds"  you'll get a lot of websites.

This is one of the first that popped up in my search:

http://www.w1hkj.com/FldigiHelp-3.21/Modes/

Generally speaking, there are specific frequencies that folks use for different modes. For example...I was running FT8 on 40m and everyone operates exclusively on 7.074mhz. If I am running JT65 I would camp out on 7.076mhz.  PSK31 would bring me over to 7.070 or 7.080150. Depending on the mode, there will be planned spots that everyone is using. That said, people do  move around and you might find random digital on other freqs. After you use them enough...if you keep the volume on...you will know the sound of different modes. 

Just one of those things that makes a lot more sense after you use it for a while.