From: dxcoffee@alt119.net.remove-s65-this   
      
   I have casually read the announcement of the upcoming Dxpedition to   
   Montserratÿby three young English hams: M0VFC, M0BLF and M0WUT from November   
   17 to 23, 2018 and I noticedÿthe link where Dom M0BLFÿexplains the reasons why   
   they won';t use FT8 on this    
   occasion. If you missed his article here it is:   
      
   I've been pondering for a while about whether or not I should add my own   
   opinions to the polemic about FT8, the now year-old digital mode that has   
   taken the ham radio world by storm. A few things recently have convinced me   
   that I should, which I'll go    
   into a little later in this short essay.   
      
   Me working VK5PO on FT8   
      
   First off, a step back: What is FT8? It's the latest in a line of digital   
   modes developed by Joe Taylor K1JT, that permit two-way radio contacts to be   
   made with incredibly weak signals, often below the noise floor. Until last   
   year, most of the modes in    
   this family were used for specialised purposes such as EME (bouncing radio   
   signals off the moon) or meteor scatter. This meant that they were adopted by   
   a small subset of radio amateurs for their specific purpose.   
      
   (EDIT:ÿThanks to DG1TAL, who has corrected me:ÿ‘JT65 has been used on HF for   
   quite a few years, even though the dynamic range of RSSI reports was not   
   suitable.'ÿThat's true, but because of the limitations, JT65 still used by   
   relatively few people.)   
      
   About a year ago, FT8 came onto the scene. Its main difference over the other   
   modes in the lineage is the speed of an ‘over': reduced from for example 50   
   seconds in JT65 to just 15 seconds. This made it much more suitable for   
   generalised use, and very    
   quickly FT8 was adopted for general contacts.ÿA post by Clublog author Michael   
   G7VJRÿin January this year shows how exponential the popularity of this mode   
   was in the second-half of 2017; a trend which seems to have continued.   
      
   I was certainly part of this band-wagon of FT8 fans. I logged my first FT8   
   contact on 16th July 2017, and to date I've made 118 QSOs using the mode from   
   home.   
      
   Some people have tried to argue that FT8 isn't amateur radio. I disagree. For   
   a hobby founded on experimentation, technical challenge and self-training in   
   all forms of communication, FT8 is the very essence of what amateur radio   
   advances should look like.   
    It's very clever technology with some seriously complex maths behind it, that   
   represents (technically) a significant step forward from what we had before.   
      
   I also believe that FT8 has its place in our shacks. One of the biggest   
   threats we have to the hobby is that, particularly in sub-urban environments,   
   noise floors can be very high from consumer electronics. Furthermore, in a   
   globalised world, national    
   regulators appear generally impotent to enforce the regulations that are   
   supposed to avoid pollution of the radio spectrum from poorly-designed   
   equipment. This was one of the reasons for my speedy adoption of FT8. Frankly,   
   from my location on the    
   outskirts of Cambridge, I wouldn't be able to work as far without the support   
   of the weak-signal error correction that's inherent in the mode.   
      
   This is all the more important during solar minimum, which I suspect plays a   
   large part in the quick spread of FT8. For the next few years, the stage of   
   the sunspot cycle means that radio wave propagation will be hard, especially   
   on higher HFÿ bands.    
   Having a mode available which allows low signal-to-noise ratio contacts is   
   certainly a help to communication on those bands, which would otherwise be   
   â€˜dead'.   
      
   The other fantastic thing about FT8 is that it brings, for the first time,   
   objective signal reports to the hobby. We all know that '59' is a nonsense,   
   but in the more ‘manual' modes, we don't have anything better. Using actual,   
   genuine, signal-to-noise    
   measurements for signal reports allows more meaningful comparisons of   
   equipment, antenna performance and propagation research.   
      
   However, in recent months a few things have happened, which started to quell   
   my enthusiasm for the mode.   
      
   First was one day when I was working from home, doing my day-job. Since the   
   computer was on anyway, I left FT8 running, periodically clicking the ‘Log   
   QSO' button when I saw it on the screen. Operating like this, I managed to   
   make about 25 QSOs during    
   the day without even realising it. None of those contacts were memorable. The   
   computer made them for me, while I worked on other things. Moreover, the   
   formulaic nature of the FT8 exchange (the facts that you have only 13   
   characters per over, and that    
   changing the text of an over from the defaults can confuse the other operator)   
   means that I felt no connection with those people at all.   
      
   You might argue that the same is true in a ‘rubber-stamp' SSB or CW contact.   
   To some extent, yes, but you still have some variability in what the operator   
   has sent, any accents in speech, or quirks of Morse rhythm or spacing. In   
   comparison, FT8 is    
   clinical.   
      
   Then, on the GS3PYE/P DXpedition to Islay last month, I became aware of   
   another disadvantage of FT8. 15 second overs may be comparatively fast, but   
   they aren't as fast as a good SSB or CW pileup, and our QSO count for the week   
   suffered as a result. We    
   were well down on even last year, because of the amount of time we'd spent   
   using FT8 on bands that were open.   
      
   Similarly, the focus in the community on monitoring the main FT8 spot   
   frequency on each band, means that other contacts seem to be being missed. I   
   know lots of people are pouring over the stats to see whether FT8 activity is   
   â€˜new' activity, or to the    
   detriment of other modes. I can only speak from my own anecdotal experience: A   
   couple of weeks ago, I was on a SOTA trip to France, and was eager to make   
   some 6m CW QSOs. There was sufficient sporadic E propagation, and the Reverse   
   Beacon Network heard    
   and spotted my CQs, but in 20 minutes nobody came back to me. Tuning higher on   
   the band, there was just one frequency with signals on it: the 6m FT8   
   frequency.   
      
   Which brings me to another concern: that of spectrum usage. (I'm discounting   
   here the as-yet little-used DXpedition mode in FT8.) On a lot of bands, there   
   is pressure for spectrum used by amateur radio to be reassigned to other, more   
   â€˜valuable' uses.    
   Until now, we've been able to demonstrate, particularly during major contests,   
   how busy our spectrum can become, which has helped in the argument to keep the   
   range of frequencies we current have. If we all start making our contacts in   
   the 3kHz bandwidth    
   above a single spot frequency, we may be doing the hobby some significant harm.   
      
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)