Sunday, February 10, 2019

FT8 on 20m this afternoon

I was able to find some spare time this afternoon and in true ham radio spirit I hauled out the MFJ mag loop set it up on the balcony and gave FT8 a go on 20m. Last week I finalized the setup of WSJT-X 2.0 and my rig the Icom 7610. Once all the settings are looked after running WSJT-X with the 7610 is a breeze. I was spotted all over the U.S. and Canada and even into Europe while on 20m. I did make 3 U.S contacts but only logged 2 as I at first did not have the setting in Reporting "Log Automatically" or "Prompt me to log QSO" Unfortunately my memory is not what I think it to be and  I lost the first contact by forgetting to log it. So it was then that I went to Settings-reporting and checked the box "Log automatically" I was excited to see my FT8 signal was heard in France, Spain and Portugal. Over all it was a very relaxing day on the radio!
I found this site that offers some great FT8 tips:

I did remove the tick from the "auto Seq" box as by doing this it did give me somewhat of a feeling of interaction with the QSO. This evening it's going to be a cup of Earl Grey tea and go over the WSJT-X 2.0 manual very closely and see what I can glean from it. Also search out some writeup's on the internet for more tips with this mode. 



6 comments:

PE4BAS, Bas said...

Well done Mike, FT8 is great for QRP and /P operation. Hope you enjoy. ANother piece of software you could try is JS8Call. I think you will like it as it needs more interaction. 73, Bas

VE9KK said...

Good morning Bas always nice to hear from you, this evening I will have a look at this program.
73,
Mike

VA3ZC said...

Hi Mike,
Glad to hear you are enjoying the new rig and FT8.
I have a small tip for you. On pskreporter, under options, if you check "show snr" and then refresh the page you will see your signal report along with the received time. I also have "hide faint monitors" checked and "show connecting lines".
That is a great site for seeing how well you are getting out.
73,
Paul VA3ZC

VE9KK said...

Good afternoon Paul, thanks very much for the advice and the adjustments have been made and the next time I am using PSK reporter I will check out the new settings.
73,
Mike
VE3WDM

Bernard (ben) Tremblay said...

Greets! back up after 25yrs away, looking into low power operations. Just found your blog!

73
--ben VE6IU (VO1LQ 1972)

VE9KK said...

Good morning Ben welcome back to ham radio and enjoy the blog.
73,
Mike VE3WDM