Video: A beginners guide to FT8 ...by VK7HH

Even though I don't use FT8 for making contacts, I find it to be a very useful tool in that it can give me a very good idea of what band conditions are like after listening for just a few minutes.

Hayden, VK7HH recently released this video which might be of interest to anyone new to the mode.

Chapters
0:00 An Introduction for Beginners
0:28 What is FT8?
2:16 A QSO Example & How well does it work?
4:16 Get Your Timing Right!
5:12 Setting up WSJT-X for the FT8 Mode
8:29 My Waterfall settings
9:44 Transmitting and message sequencing
14:54 Setting your TX audio level and ALC drive
17:15 I've never worked that country before!
18:11 How much Power should you run?
19:48 A bonus tip to level up your DX abilities!

Links...
FT8 Operating Guide - https://www.physics.princeton.edu/pulsar/K1JT/FT8_Operating_Tips.pdf
GridTracker - https://gridtracker.org/grid-tracker/
Ham Radio DX on YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/c/HamRadioDX/videos

PSK Reporter website passes 20 Billion Reception Records

On the 8th of May 2021, the PSK Reporter website hit another milestone when it passed the 20 Billion reception records mark. As the image shows above, it was recording almost 1000 reception reports per second on Saturday afternoon as it whizzed past 20 billion.

The vast majority of these reception records are of course due to the hugely popular FT8 mode.

The chart above shows the most popular modes over a 2-hour period just after the site passed 20 billion.

The reception reports for FT8 are 46 times the size of those for FT4.

In terms of software used in the last 7-days, the WSJT-X suite is still the largest with 23,741. The next largest is JTDX at 9,935 which seems to becoming more popular. I think when I checked this a year or two back, WSJT-X was a lot more dominant.

The PSK Reporter website can be found here... https://pskreporter.info/

New report shows 84% of contacts on the 50 MHz band are via the digital FT8 mode

A new report by Michael, G7VJR of the popular  ClubLog website shows that an amazing 84% of contacts on the 50 MHz band over the last 13-months have been via the FT8 digital mode.

The data is taken from the almost 1.8 million QSO's logged on the site in the last 13-months.

This is bound to stir some controversy with a lot of people having misgivings about how this digital mode seems to be replacing the traditional SSB and CW means of communication.

As can be seen from this previous post, FT8 has enjoyed an explosion in popularity since it was released in 2017.

It does look though as if the pendulum have swung a bit too far in the digital direction. During the Summer Sporadic-E season, there are many times where signals are reasonably strong and a SSB contact could be completed in a much shorter time frame than say a FT8 contact with its 15-second transmission cycles going back and forth.

There is also the advantage of SSB and CW users being spread out over 100 or so kHz where as the FT8 users are all gathered at the 50.313 MHz watering hole.

How to get more of a balance though might be easier said than done.

Links...

1) G7VJR Blog

Latest stats from ClubLog website show over 50% of contacts in 2020 were via FT8

 

The latest stats from the Clublog website suggests that the FT8 digital mode now accounts for over half of all contacts made on the amateur radio bands in the year 2020.

The chart below from July 2017 to March 2021 shows how FT8 has grown to dominate the bands since its release in the second half of 2017.

Surprisingly, the newer and faster FT4 mode doesn't seem to have made any inroads on the popularity of FT8 since its introduction in late 2019.

Tens of thousands of logs are uploaded to the Clublog website every year and the data trends for 2020 are based on over 66.4 million contacts.

Links...

1) G7VJR blog post

Twitter poll suggests that one-third of those using FT8 on 144 MHz are using vertical polarization

How it all started... After listening for FT8 signals on 144 MHz for a few days, I was suprised to hear some signals that were well over 500 kms away. 

Considering I was using just a basic vertical Slim Jim half-wave antenna in the attic, I began wondering if everyone was really using horizontal polaziation as I had expected?

I began thinking about it and I came to the conclusion that even though FT8 is a weak signal mode on SSB and horizontal polarization is the norm, there must be some stations using just a simple 'white stick' dual band vertical up on their roof. 

After all, if you have limited space or you're active on many different bands, you may not be interested in getting a dedicated horizontal antenna for 144 MHz.

The Poll... I thought it might be interesting to see just how many people are using vertical polarization on 2m FT8 so I contacted Tim, GW4VXE who writes for several amateur radio publications and has over 4000 followers on Twitter.

I suggested to Tim that it might be interesting to put a poll up on Twitter just out of interest. Tim duly obliged and put the following poll up on Twitter for about a week.

Tim asked his followers if they used exclusively horizontal or vertical polarization or if they sometimes used either for FT8 on 2-metres.

Results... A total of 76 people voted and the results were...

Horizontal Polarization - 55.3%
Vertical Polarization - 32.9% and 
Both Vertical & Horizontal - 11.8%

There are a few caveats with the results...

1) The sample size was 76. It's not huge but I think it's still enough to give a good indication.

2) The poll was just on Twitter. Whether having the poll on Facebook or some other platform would make a difference, I don't know.

3) As Tim writes for UK based radio magazines, I would assume most of his followers are from the UK as well. Would the answer be the same in Germany, elsewhere in Europe or the USA?

In Conclusion... I think the poll results show that there are a lot more people using vertical polarization on FT8 on 144 MHz than might be expected. 

If you have a radio with 2m SSB on it then try tuning to 144.174 MHz when there is high pressure about and have a listen on FT8, you might be pleasantly suprised.

Credits: My thanks to Tim, GW4VXE for conducting the poll. You can find Tim on Twitter here... https://twitter.com/gw4vxe

Video: 6m FT8 DXing... by VE3VN

The Radio Amateurs of Canada (RAC) held their annual conference online this year and as part of the event, there was a talk by Ron Schwartz on FT8 DXing on the 50 MHz band.

The 64-minute video is shown below...

There is some interference and dropouts in the presentation during the first 28-minutes but the second half is much better.

This video gives an interesting perspective of what DXing on 6m looks like from a Canadian perspective and it should be of interest to anyone thinking of getting going on the 50 MHz band.

Amazing 5600 km opening on 144 MHz from Cape Verde Islands to Poland

This post is now in two parts.

The original post is shown in Part 1 below.

The updated information with the log from D4VHF is shown in Part 2 further down the post.

* * * * *

Part 1...

On Friday the 29th of May 2020, there was an extensive Sporadic-E opening across Europe which reached as high as 144 MHz allowing stations across the continent to make many fine contacts.

The most extraordinary contacts however was probably the opening from the Cape Verde Islands off the coast of Africa to Poland on 144 MHz. The longest path recorded seems to have been when the FT8 signals from D4VHF were heard by SP5XMU in Warsaw, a distance of just over 5,600kms.

The map above shows the stations on FT8 that reported hearing or were heard by D4VHF. The most intensive part of the Sporadic-E seems to have been along a narrow corridor stretching from Lyon in France to Warsaw in Poland.

Mode of Propagation... It seems very likely that there were two propagation modes at work for this extraordinary path from the Cape Verde Islands to Central Europe.

As shown by the tropo prediction map above courtesy of F5LEN, there is a reasonably stable maritime tropo duct from the Cape Verde Islands to south coast of Portugal, a distance of about 2,800kms.

The path from Poland to the south-west of the Iberian Peninsula was spanned by a Sporadic-E opening which was in progress across Europe at the time.

As with openings of this nature, there is always the possibility of double hop Sporadic-E which can't be discounted for a good part of the path. However, this tropo duct off the north-west coast of Africa is a remarkably steady feature and it seems to be there for a large part of the year. It's hard to imagine that it didn't play a major part in the opening.

FT8 screenshot from D4VHF

In 2019, there were other similar mixed Sporadic-E & tropo duct openings from Cape Verde to Italy and Germany. The distances involved with this opening to Poland though are exceptional.

* * * * *

PART 2...

Update. Now that the dust has settled, we can look at the log of D4VHF and who they worked...

While many stations heard D4VHF on FT8, a much smaller number managed to make a contact.

Here is the log...

2020-05-29,10:05:15, CT1END,IM58,144.175900,FT8,-07,-04,,,
2020-05-29,11:10:00, IK4ADE,JN54,144.175900,FT8,-07,-09,,,
2020-05-29,11:57:15, IK0ZYH,JN62,144.175900,FT8,-15,-17,,,
2020-05-29,12:15:45, EA8AJC,IL18,144.175900,FT8,+28,+17,,,
2020-05-29,12:36:00, F6EAS,,144.175900,FT8,+04,+02,,,
2020-05-29,12:43:30, EC1KV,,144.175900,FT8,-15,-15,,,
2020-05-29,12:49:15, F1DUZ,IN97,144.175900,FT8,-18,-19,,,
2020-05-29,12:52:00, F6CIS,,144.175900,FT8,-15,-19,,,
2020-05-29,12:59:45, F6DBI,IN88,144.175900,FT8,-03,-07,,,
2020-05-29,13:22:30, F8DBF,IN78,144.175900,FT8,-06,-08,,,
2020-05-29,13:47:00, G4RRA,,144.175900,FT8,-15,-16,,,
2020-05-29,13:49:00, G8BCG,,144.175900,FT8,+00,-16,,,
2020-05-29,13:52:00, GW7SMV,,144.175900,FT8,-05,-16,,,
2020-05-29,13:54:30, G3NJV,IO70,144.175900,FT8,-15,-01,,,
2020-05-29,13:55:30, G7RAU,IN79,144.175900,FT8,-13,-13,,,
2020-05-29,14:19:15, CT1IUA,IM67,144.175900,FT8,-16,-12,,,
2020-05-29,15:27:00, DJ8RZ,JN58,144.175900,FT8,-08,-10,,,
2020-05-29,15:30:45, DL5MCG,,144.175900,FT8,-09,-19,,,
2020-05-29,15:34:45, I2FAK,JN45,144.175900,FT8,+10,-11,,,
2020-05-29,18:41:15, CT1ANO,IN51,144.175900,FT8,-18,-19,,,
2020-05-29,18:55:15, CU2GI,HM77,144.175900,FT8,-19,-18,,,
2020-05-30,08:39:45, EA8AIN,IL18,144.175900,FT8,-09,+08,,,
2020-05-30,16:21:30, EA7FDW,IM76,144.175900,FT8,-11,-12,,,
2020-05-30,16:44:45, EA7E,IM66,144.175900,FT8,-18,-20,,,
2020-05-30,16:49:45, CT1EYQ,IM58,144.175900,FT8,-18,-17,,,
2020-05-30,17:16:45, EC2AGL,IN91,144.175900,FT8,-06,-16,,,
2020-05-30,17:22:45, CT1ADT,IM57,144.175900,FT8,-13,-07,,,

The FT8 signals sent and received by D4VHF according to the PSK Reporter website are shown at the end of this post.

Some points...

1) SSB V FT8... For a Sporadic-E opening on 144 MHz, a mode like SSB would be much better in terms of speed. However, look at the signal strengths in the log. Most are in the minus dB range so a SSB QSO would probably have not been possible.

As for what would be a better mode is up for debate. Marginal contacts via CW? Faster digital modes like FT4? No matter what mode was used, there would have always been incomplete contacts and a limit to how many would get in the log.

2) Mode of Propagation... From what we know, there seems to be two components.

First, there is a marine duct off the west coast of Morocco which allows VHF signals to propagate from Cape Verde Islands up to the Canary Islands (1500kms), Portugal & Spain (3000kms) and the UK (4000kms).

According to one of the operators of D4VHF...Mark EA8FF, there was no tropo between D4 and EA8 or EA7 at the time. And yet, this marine duct over the sea was probably present for a good part of the path. I don't think we can discount it and yet, there must surely be Sporadic-E openings on 144 MHz in that part of the world as well? We can't always assume it's a marine duct.

While we can debate the paths from D4 to the coasts of Portugal or the south of Spain, those signals from further north were almost certainly via Sporadic-E.

The question is was it tropo & Sp-E, multi-hop Sp-E at 144 MHz?? Just in terms of probability, I personally don't believe in triple hop Sporadic-E at 144 MHz. Double maybe, triple?!?!

3) Sporadic-E to the UK... The problem with just a list of stations is that there are like data points for a graph, they don't make much sense until you draw the graph. In the same vein, when you generate a map and see the location of the stations, you can see patterns.

Again, see the map above. Note how the UK stations are strung out in a nice narrow line. This is a classic Sporadic-E footprint. The furthest station was GW7SMV at just over 4300kms.

4) Poland... The other unusual dimension to this opening was the unusual opening at the same time from Portugal to Poland. See the QSO map below from Tom, SP5MXU...

As you can see, SP5XMU was able to work stations in Portugal at a distance of almost 2800kms. What is unusual about this is that the usual maximum distance for one-hop Sporadic-E is about 2300kms. Where did the extra 500kms come from?

This is usually explained by say a tropo extension at one or both ends. Another is the possibility of chordal hop as suggested by SO3Z in the comments. In that scenario, the signal is going between two Sporadic-E clouds before returning to the ground again.

The chordal hop theory may help explain how the 144 MHz signals covered at least part of the 5600km distance from Cape Verde Islands to Poland.

Part 2 Conclusion... In the past with traditional modes like SSB and CW, we could be reasonably sure about the mode of propagation on VHF bands like 2 metres. Now with digital modes like FT8 we are seeing signals buried in the noise which makes it harder to be certain about how the signal was propagated.

I know FT8 isn't popular with everyone but the new digital modes are allowing radio amateurs to discover paths on VHF that we never knew existed.

* * * * *

Equivalent Distances... As always, it's interesting to look at some maps to put these remarkable distances in perspective.

The 5600 km distance from the Cape Verde Islands to Warsaw would reach as far north as Oslo, the capital of Norway.

It's hard to believe but the whole island of Iceland is actually closer!

From a western perspective, the equivalent distance reaches as far as Washington DC in the USA.

Remember, there are no satellites or moonbounce involved here. This is a 144 MHz signal being propagated by Sporadic-E and tropo.

What if...??? The map of the USA above suggests maybe one potential extraordinary path. From time to time, there seems to be a tropo duct across the Atlantic from Care Verde to the the Caribbean. Could this be extended even further to the west by a Sporadic-E opening at the same time???

FT8 signals heard by D4VHF...(over 3400kms)

World First FT8 Moonbounce contact completed on 432 MHz...

One of the niche areas of amateur radio and perhaps one of the most difficult is trying to make contacts by bouncing radio signals off the moon. 'Moonbounce' or EME (Earth-Moon-Earth) has its proponents who squeeze every last bit of improvement out of their antennas and equipment to overcomes the huge losses involved.

On a posting on the Moon-Net, Joe Taylor K1JT said he believed that the first moonbounce contact had taken place with the FT8 digital mode.

On the 21st of May 2020, an EME contact on 432 MHz had taken place between W2HRO in New Jersey and PA2V in the Netherlands.

While the weak signal FT8 mode is hugely popular on the HF and VHF bands, modes like JT65 are more popular for EME due to its better sensitivity.

Here is the posting from K1JT....

Some here will be interested to learn that earlier (21May20) today W2HRO and PA2V easily made (as far as I know) the first EME QSO using the FT8 mode.

Paul and Peter used WSJT-X 2.2.0-rc1, a beta-release candidate for version 2.2 of the program WSJT-X. Both stations have moderate 4-yagi setups on 432. Conditions today were not particularly good: degradation around 3 dB, and the Sun only 20 degrees from the Moon.

For terrestrial use the FT8 decoder searches over the range -2.5 to +2.4s for clock offset DT between transmitting and receiving stations. When "Decode after EME delay" is checked on the WSJT-X "Settings" screen, the accessible DT range becomes -0.5 to +4.4 s. Just right for EME.

FT8 uses 8-GFSK modulation with tones separated by 6.25 Hz. At the time of this QSO the expected Doppler spread on the W2HRO - PA2V EME path was 8 Hz, which causes some additional loss of sensitivity. Nevertheless, as you'll see in screenshots posted here, the copy was solid in both directions:

Why might you want to use FT8 instead of "Old Reliable JT65" for EME QSOs? FT8 is about 4 dB less sensitive than JT65, but with 15-second T/R sequences it's four times faster and it doesn't use Deep Search.

When I was active in EME contests on 144 MHz, I was always frustrated that even with reasonably strong (for EME) signals, one's maximum JT65 QSO rate is about 12 per hour. With FT8 you can do 40 per hour, as long as workable stations are available.

What about FT8 EME on 1296 MHz? It might sometimes work, but Doppler spread will probably make standard FT8 a problem. But if there were sufficient interest, we could make an "FT8B" or "FT8C" with wider tone spacing.

Please try FT8 for EME on any of the bands 144, 432, and 1296 MHz, and let us know your results.

-- 73, Joe, K1JT

For the FT8 moonbouce contact on 432 MHz, W2HRO was running 1KW into 4 x 15 el Yagis. PA2V was running 1KW into 4 x 27 el Yagis.

432 MHz world tropo record extended even further to 4,644 kms - 1st Jan 2020

On Saturday the 28th of December 2019, Ian GM3SEK in the south-west of Scotland managed to work D41CV on 432 MHz to set a new world record for tropo on the band. The distance for this FT8 contact was an amazing 4,562 kms.

Considering the fact that it was on the 70cms band and that  the south-west coast of Scotland was one of the longest sea paths to Cape Verde Islands, it seemed as this might be a long term record.

It wasn't to be however as just a few days later on Wednesday the 1st of January 2020, Nick G4KUX in the county of Durham in the north of England managed to work D41CV also on FT8 on 432 MHz to push the record out a further 80kms or so to 4,644kms.

This is the screenshot of G4KUX having an FT8 contact with D41CV on 432 MHz.

Nick, G4KUX lives in an elevated location to the west of Bishop Auckland in County Durham in the north of England. His location is about 360 metres above sea level and he has a good take off for radio in all directions.

For the record breaking contact with D41CV, Nick was using 400 watts into a UHF Log-Periodic antenna as shown in the photo below. The suprising thing about this is that the gain of the Log-Periodic would be pretty modest and is probably no better than say a 3 or 4 element Yagi.

The gain of the Log is probably at least 10dB lower that say a box of four Yagi antennas like the ones Nick has for 144 MHz.

Mode of Propagation???... Looking at the path for the previous record contact on 432 MHz from Ian, GM3SEK in the SW of Scotland to D41CV on Cape Verde Islands then we can probably speculate that the mode of propagation was via a sea duct.

For G4KUX however, the signals had to cross over some hills and mountains in Wales and the north of England. Considering there were very good tropo conditions at the time across western Europe, it seems likely that there was an elevated duct for the most northerly part of the contact and this then coupled into a sea duct further south.

Record Limit... The map below shows the new limit of the 432 MHz tropo record.

Can the record be broken? Probably. We saw in 2019 several occasions during the year when a sea duct existed between Cape Verde Islands and the British and Irish Isles. If the only mode of propagation is via sea ducting then maybe the new record will be set from the western islands of Scotland.

What we saw in the last few days at the end of 2019 and the start of 2020 was the rarer occurrence of the sea ducting happening at the same time as an extensive tropo opening with elevated ducting. This will no doubt happen again but maybe not so often.

G4KUX contacts... This is a list of some contacts G4KUX made around the same time on FT8 on 432 MHz.

G4KUX IO94BP F6DBI IN88 FT8 -08 -15 20191229 105400  20191229 105500 70CM 432.174000  0
G4KUX IO94BP F5APQ JO00 FT8 -06 +03 20191231 153200  20191231 153400 70CM 432.174000  0
G4KUX IO94BP ON4QJ JO20 FT8 -12 -09 20191231 153500  20191231 153600 70CM 432.174000  0
G4KUX IO94BP F1ISM JN09 FT8 +03 +02 20191231 155300  20191231 155400 70CM 432.174000  0
G4KUX IO94BP ON4AOI JO21 FT8 -06 -14 20191231 160200  20191231 160400 70CM 432.174000  0 
G4KUX IO94BP F6KBF JN18 FT8 -03 -17 20191231 160500  20191231 160700 70CM 432.174000  0 
G4KUX IO94BP SP7CKH JO92 FT8 -13 -19 20200101 121100  20200101 121300 70CM 432.063000  0
G4KUX IO94BP SP2JYR JO92GP FT8 -15 -10 20200101 121400  20200101 121400 70CM 432.063000  0
G4KUX IO94BP DL1TRK JO63  FT8 -20 -14 20200101 121500  20200101 121500 70CM 432.063000  0 
G4KUX IO94BP HF1J JO73  FT8 -17 -21 20200101 151400  20200101 151700 70CM 432.063000  0 
G4KUX IO94BP DL1SUZ JO53 FT8 +00 +06 20200101 151700  20200101 151800 70CM 432.063000  0 
G4KUX IO94BP PH0TV JO32 FT8 -16 -11 20200101 152000  20200101 152100 70CM 432.063000  0 
G4KUX IO94BP D41CV HK76MU FT8 -15 -20 20200101 192900  20200101 201300 70CM 432.174000  0 

As you can see, Nick was able to work into France, Belgium, Poland, Germany and the Netherlands while there was high pressure and tropo ducting about.

All in all, an amazing week or so of propagation on the VHF and UHF bands.

Links...
a) F5LEN tropo forecasts

Australian 70cms digital record extended to 2,806 kms

Early on the morning of the 5th of December 2019, there was a remarkable tropo contact between Leigh, VK2KRR and Peter, VK6KXW on 70cms across the Australian continent. The distance was 2,806 kms and crossed over the Great Australian Bight, a part of the ocean well noted for tropospheric ducting.

This was a new Australian record for a digital contact on 432 MHz as both stations were using the FT8 mode. The previous record was 2,793 kms which was set back in December of 2016.

VK6KXW was running 75 watts from an IC9700 into a single yagi. VK2KRR was also running 75 watts from an IC9700 but his antenna was a box of four yagis.

VK2KRR's box of four yagis used for the contact. Source: VK2KRR on Facebook

The time of the contact was probably also a factor as tropo ducting is often at its best very early in the morning when the atmosphere has settled down and the sun hasn't risen yet.

The current non-digital record for the 70cms band in Australia is just a bit further at 2,862 kms. This was set between VK6KXW and VK7AC on the 17th of January 2019.

While examining both of these contacts, it can be difficult to relate to the distance of 2,806 kms and just how far it is. It might be useful for stations in Europe to remember that the distance from the west coast of Ireland to Newfoundland in Canada is 3,000kms, just an extra 200 kms.

Leigh VK2KRR has a nice website with plenty of VHF info, visit https://www.vk2krr.com/

Extra bandwidth FT8 experiment... June 2019

In a comment on a recent post, Bas PE4BAS in the Netherlands suggested I try increasing the bandwidth on FT8 to see if I could hear more signals.

For FT8, I normally have the IF bandwidth set at 2.4 kHz which is pretty standard on most rigs for SSB.

I waited until 28 MHz was wide open and I increased the bandwidth to 6 kHz. The results are shown below...

For anyone not familiar with the WSJT-X programme, this is the waterfall display.

The green horizontal lines are the 15 second time stamps. The numbers at the top show the audio frequency in Hz going from 200 Hz to 3000 Hz. The oldest signals are at the bottom and the newest are at the top.

The signals to examine here are those at about 2300 Hz and above.

From from the bottom up, you can see how I was listening with the 6 kHz filter and hearing signals from 2400 to 2600 Hz. As soon as I put in the 2.4 kHz filter, those signals pretty much disappeared. Once I opened up the filter again, they reappeared.

Some thoughts....

1) Increase your bandwidth...... It would seem to be worth using wider filters if possible. By using a 'normal' 2.4 kHz filter on SSB, you may be missing out on some signals.

2) Beware the edges..... If the band is quiet then it seems that the obvious place to be in somewhere in the middle of the audio pass band. If however the band is really busy like above then it may be worth spreading out and getting away from the crowd. However it's worth remembering that going on the example above, some people may not hear you.

3) Correct Frequency..... If you're using an older rig then make sure you are on the correct frequency. Just because your radio say 28.174.00 MHz, it's doesn't mean it's right. If you're using a 2.4 kHz filter and are slightly off frequency by 200-300 Hz then you could be missing out on even more signals.

Addendum : 
I found this guideline on the WSJT-X Help page...

Bandwidth and Frequency Setting
If your transceiver offers more than one bandwidth setting in USB mode, it may be advantageous to choose the widest one possible, up to about 5 kHz. This choice has the desirable effect of allowing the Wide Graph (waterfall and 2D spectrum) to display the conventional JT65 and JT9 sub-bands simultaneously on most HF bands. Further details are provided in the Basic Operating Tutorial. A wider displayed bandwidth may also be helpful at VHF and above, where FT8, JT4, JT65, and QRA64 signals may be found over much wider ranges of frequencies.

If you have only a standard SSB filter you won’t be able to display more than about 2.7 kHz bandwidth. Depending on the exact dial frequency setting, on HF bands you can display the full sub-band generally used for one mode.

Of course, you might prefer to concentrate on one mode at a time, setting your dial frequency to (say) 14.074 for FT8, 14.076 for JT65, or 14.078 for JT9. Present conventions have the nominal JT9 dial frequency 2 kHz higher than the JT65 dial frequency on most bands, and the FT8 frequency 2 kHz lower.

FT8 signals heard on 28 MHz - Wed 19th Dec 2018

The conditions on 28 MHz for the last one to two weeks have been pretty awful with slim pickings. There was however a nice mid-Winter Sporadic-E opening to Europe on Wednesday the 19th of December.

It started quiet enough with VP8LP in the Falkland Islands in the South Atlantic appearing as the third station of the day.

114845 -10  1.6  678 ~  CQ MM0HVU IO85
114845 -14 -0.4 1337 ~  CQ G0OYQ IO93
114915 -20  1.6  678 ~  CQ MM0HVU IO85
123300 -19 -0.1 1865 ~  CQ VP8LP GD18

What was suprising about this was that the band appeared dead. I had the rig turned on and I heard nothing. I glanced at the screen at one point and noticed VP8LP had been heard.

In the afternoon at about 14:15 UTC, the band opened up with several hours of Sporadic-E to Europe.

What's interesting about all these signals is that they were all using the new version of FT8 i.e. WSJT-X Version 2.0. If they had been using the older versions like version 1.8 or 1.9, I wouldn't have heard them as the two systems are incompatible.

It just goes to show that a lot of people have upgraded already and are not waiting for the end of the year to change.

FT8 - The Big Changeover

On the 10th of December 2018, the new upgraded version of FT8 was officially released. The new WSJT-X Ver 2.0 version replaces the earlier 1.8 and 1.9 versions which were hugely popular.

The BIG problem however is that the new FT8 protocols have been enhanced in a way that is not backward compatible with older versions of the program. i.e. those using the new version can't talk to those using the old version.

There is a three week window for users to upgrade by the start of the new year.

“The new protocols become the worldwide standards starting on December 10, 2018, and all users should upgrade to WSJT-X 2.0 by January 1, 2019.” ... Joe Taylor K1JT, WSJT-X home page.

Considering the huge number of people using FT8, it might seem at first like trying to herd some cats. Will everyone change over? Will there be people using both systems in 2019?

On the 10th of December, I adopted a 'wait and see' policy to see how many people changed. On the 12th and 13th of December, I noticed that I was hearing FT8 signals on 28 MHz and not decoding them. I checked the usual time and frequency settings and all was ok.

Perhaps the old 1.9 version might be ok on the lower HF bands like 20m where there are plenty of signals but there are very few signals on 28 MHz. If I can't decode a signal then it's a big deal.

On the 14th of December, I changed over to Version 2.0 and one of the first signals I heard on 28 MHz was VP8LP on the Falkland Islands in the South Atlantic.

I have no doubt that there will be plenty of people using the old version for a while but upgrading to version 2.0 as soon as possible seems like the best option.

More info here... https://physics.princeton.edu/pulsar/k1jt/wsjtx.html

PSK Reporter passes 5 Billion Reception reports

Back in July of 2018, I had a post up about how the number of reception reports on the PSK Reporter website had just passed 4 Billion.

In the middle of November 2018, it passed 5 billion. That's an extra 1 billion reception reports in just 4 months!

Over 99% of these reports are FT8 which shows how the mode has really taken off. A lot of people dismiss the mode but the numbers speak for themselves.

Poor conditions on 28 MHz... Thurs 1st Nov 2018

Over the last week to 10 days, there has been a dramatic drop in the conditions on 28 MHz. The FT8 signals that I heard on Thurs 1st Nov 2018 are shown in the map. Most of the European signals are probably weak Sporadic-E.

And today wasn't exceptional, it's been very poor every day for the last week. I thought it might have been due to the CQWW contest last weekend but no, conditions are awful.

Contrast that to say the 15th of October 2018 when South America, Africa and the Indian Ocean was heard.

On more than one occasion, I checked my antenna to make sure it was working ok and it was.

It's almost as if it has gone from Is this really the sunspot minimum? to This really is the sunspot minimum!

The solar flux is currently at 68 which is more or less rock bottom.

Will it pick up again or will it stay flat as we move away from the equinox?

Big opening on 144 MHz... Sat 20th Oct 2018

Back in early September, I tried listening to FT8 signals on 144 MHz on what a pretty flat band and the results were mediocre at best. My conclusion was that I was too far west to hear FT8 signals on 144 MHz with a very basic antenna when the band was flat.

On Saturday the 20th of October, there was a big lift on 2 metres with French repeaters coming in on 145.350 MHz and 145.775 MHz. I had a listen on the FT8 frequency for about 18 hours and this is what I heard from about 18:00 UTC on Saturday to about noon on Sunday...

It was pretty amazing what could be heard using just a simple Slim Jim vertical half-wave in the attic of my house. If I heard that many signals with a basic indoor vertical, just imagine the number of stations I might have heard if I had been using a small horizontal beam outdoors.

The three furthest signals heard were...
DK5DV 1139kms, DK5WO 1008 kms & F5EZJ 984 kms.

The mode of propagation was probably tropospheric ducting which allowed the VHF signals travel well over the horizon. Unlike the openings to Canary Island and Cape Verde, this was probably an elevated duct by a layer much higher in the atmosphere.

I have worked plenty of stations in Europe like this before on 2m SSB but it's always interesting to hear. It seems as if FT8 might be giving 2 metres a new lease of life?

FT8 tests on 144 MHz with limited success

After reading a post on the blog of Roger G3XBM about the possibilities of FT8 on 144 MHz, I tried it out for myself. The results for me on receive on a flat band however were mediocre at best...

Like any experiment, you always learn something even if the results are poor.

The key points for me are...

1) Poor antenna..... Using an indoor Slim-Jim half wave vertical antenna in the attic doesn't cut it for weak signals on 144 MHz. It might be fine in the SE of the UK, the low countries or Germany but not here in Ireland.

2) Too far west..... I estimate the bulk of the FT8 stations on 144 MHz are at least 400 kms to the east of me. Roger had a lot more stations closer to him even from the continent.

3) Fewer planes..... With a 15 second transmission time, aircraft scatter probably plays a big part on the number of FT8 signals heard on 144 MHz. Here on the south coast of Ireland, most of the aircraft traffic is Trans-Atlantic going east-west. There would be a much higher number of planes criss-crossing over the south east of the UK with many at lower altitudes.

The results confirm what I would have kind of guessed anyway. FT8 is good but it's not that good. To operate 2m FT8 from here, I would need an external horizontal Yagi.

Opening to Japan on 50 MHz...Fri 29th June 2018

I saw a note on G3XBM's blog today that 6m was open to Japan from the UK. I checked the online FT8 log of local station Tom EI4DQ on 50 MHz and sure enough, there was an opening from Ireland to Japan as well.

Several other EI stations on 50 MHz such as EI3KD and EI7BMB had similar FT8 spots to Japan.

What I found interesting was that I heard nothing like this on 28 MHz with a vertical half-wave and I was listening all day.

Usually 28 MHz is better than 50 MHz and it opens earlier and closes later. Nothing on 10m this time though.

Was the path only open to the higher frequency signals? Was it a case that beams and high power were needed to exploit this opening on 50 MHz?

Interesting opening to the USA on 10m - 27th June 2018

When I checked the PSK reporter this morning, I noticed that I had heard one lone signal on FT8 on 28 MHz from the USA overnight. It turned out to be NF3R in Pennsylvania who was heard at 2:54am local time here.

As can be seen from the chart above, NF3R was being heard all across the USA. The interesting thing is that I was the only station in Europe to hear NF3R in the early hours of the 27th.

At 5156 kms, it was probably three Sporadic-E hops across the Atlantic. I guess that's the thing with Sp-E, you can never tell when and where it will open to.

Illegal fishery buoy on the 28 MHz FT8 frequency

Anyone that uses 28 MHz on a regular basis will have heard illegal driftnet fishing buoys which give out a short carrier followed by an id in morse.

Over the last few days, I have heard one on the FT8 frequency of 28.074 MHz (USB). It is shown below in the waterfall plot as a short narrow carrier in amongst all the FT8 signals.

It is a solid carrier for about 10 seconds and is then followed by the letters E H in morse code. (Something like a 10 second dah followed by dit.....dit dit dit dit ). It transmits every 2m 30s.

I only noticed it in the last few days so I presume that it was only recently switched on.

As for the location, these are the FT8 signals I was hearing at the time....

I would guess either the western Med or out in the Atlantic but it's very difficult to know.

Links...
1) IARU Region 1 page on 28 MHz driftnet buoys