On 6/1/2018 9:00 AM, Michael Blake wrote:
I believe the main selling point is that you can work DXCC in short time with zero personal involvement:)
As I understand it, FT8 was developed primarily with 6M E-skip in mind, because an older weak signal mode, JT65 took so long that a double hop opening had faded before a QSO could be completed.
I chase 6M grids. Last season, I worked >140 grids, 40 of which were new ones. That's not easy to do from the west coast when you already have 350 confirmed. 13 were JT65 or JT9, 14 were FT8, 10 were MSK144, 3 were CW, and 1 was SSB. When you reach that level, the grids you're missing are mostly those with low population density. A relatively small number of hams working 6M know CW, and all of the WSJT modes are 20 dB or more better than SSB. So FT8, by virtue of its new popularity, is lighting up a bunch of grids that were otherwise not available for marginal conditions.
In two strong openings about ten days ago, I worked more than a dozen JA stations in 9 grids! All but one has already been confirmed in LOTW. That's another strong point -- in general, those who use digital modes are FAR more likely to be on LOTW, which saves a lot of postage if you're chasing awards.
73, Jim K9YC ______________________________________________________________ Elecraft mailing list Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm Post: mailto:Elecraft@mailman.qth.net This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html Message delivered to arch...@mail-archive.com
