Article on using FT8 for Moonbounce on 1296 MHz...

Bacn in May of 2020, I had a post up about the first Moonbounce /EME (Earth-Moon-Earth) contact on 432 MHz by using the FT8 digital mode.

I recently came across another detailed article by KA1GT on using FT8 for Moonbounce on 1296 MHz.

Besides the very weak signals, one of the problems that FT8 has to deal with is the time delay of about 2.4 to 2.8 seconds for the signal to go from the Earth to the Moon and back to the Earth again. Signals on the HF bands by comparison are almost instantaneous.

As you can see from the waterfall display above, the signal from the Moon is delayed and falls outside the usual 15 second window for decoding.

The article covers how this delay is dealt with and concludes that the FT8 digital mode is suitable for strong signals on 1296 MHz and allow a contact to be completed up to four times faster than using the more usual JT65C mode.

You can view the article HERE