Upgrade of WSJT-X software and the 40 MHz band

Just a post of some notes for my own benefit although others might find it useful as well.

Even when I wasn't updating the blog for the last six months, I was still using the radio in that I left it monitoring the WSPR frequency on 28.1264 MHz every day. The software I was using on the PC was WSJT-X with quite an old rev V2.0.1 which I think is from 2019?

I never really bothered updating the version I had as it decoded WSPR and FT8 signals fine. I know my old version didn't decode the 'new' FT4 mode but I wasn't too bothered about that.

I tried listening for some of the Irish 40 MHz beacons this morning. I managed to get two two successful decodes from EI1CAH on 40.16 MHz using the PI4 mode. I think this was via aircraft scatter.

The other beacon EI1KNH on 40.013 MHz uses several modes including FT8 so I had to be careful as I didn't want to 'hear' something on 40 MHz and have my PC upload it to PSKReporter as a 28 MHz signal.

The problem with my old version of WSJT-X and FT8 is that it doesn't support any 40 MHz operation. So I downloaded the latest version of WSJT-X from the Princeton University website... V2.5.4

It essentially looked the same when I ran it. From the default settings, it doesn't show 8m (40 MHz) as a band option.

Under 'File', I had to go to 'Settings...' and then click on 'Frequencies' as can be seen above.

There are loads of options here... I picked the one that was All mode on 24 GHz as I was pretty sure I wouldn't need it 😉

Then it's just a case of double clicking on it and changing the frequency. I chose 40.680 MHz... and then clicked ok.

When I went back to the main programme then, I had 40.680 MHz on 8m as a band option.

In the end, I didn't manage to any FT8 decodes from the beacon but I probably need to improve my antenna system.

At listen I can report any signals that I hear now.

Addendum... I finally managed to decode one FT8 transmission from EI1KNH which I think was from aircraft scatter again.

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/

No uploads to the PSK reporter website

I noticed yesterday that none of my FT8 reception reports on 28 MHz were appearing on the PSK Reporter website. I checked all the usual things like rebooting the PC, restarting the WSJT-X programme and checking my internet access. Despite the fact that I had plenty of signals that were being decoded by the programme, they weren't appearing on the PSK Reporter site even after waiting for some time for them to appear after restarting everything.

I checked the site and I could see that the reports from other stations were appearing fine. As far as I could tell, it just seemed to be my spots weren't appearing.

In the end, I tried un-clicking and re-clicking the 'Enable PSK Reporter Spotting' in the Settings tab and it seemed to work after that. I can't see how that would make a difference as it was ticked initially but it's working now again with all the spots being uploaded to the site. Coincidence or a fix? Not sure.