Re: [Elecraft] Boldly OT: 6 meter Sporadic-E season and the FT-8 microjuggernaut

There is an Android app, EsSense, which you can set to check spots that mention 2m or 6m, and your locality. It will run in the background on your phone, and alarm you with sound and/or vibration when spots turn up. I've had it load on my phone for a while, but haven't played with it much.

Re: [Elecraft] Boldly OT: 6 meter Sporadic-E season and the FT-8 microjuggernaut

I have a Perl script that scrapes my DX cluster, and announces when a band is open... If you want it, email me DIRECT, NOT ON THE LIST, and I can send it to you. It uses no more resources than any other cluster client, so it can work on many clusters. The script has more comments than actual

Re: [Elecraft] Boldly OT: 6 meter Sporadic-E season and the FT-8 microjuggernaut

Hi Lynn, True and a very nice map it is indeed. The issue I was trying to point out and not doing a very good job is that with gab or twitter the band opening data could be "pushed out" to subscribers in near real time, something needed for quick openings on 6m. Besides who doesn't own a

Re: [Elecraft] Boldly OT: 6 meter Sporadic-E season and the FT-8 microjuggernaut

Hi Scott, Five times "yes" - one for each of the points you raise. I am a huge proponent of "if everybody's listening, nobody's going to make a QSO." I'm on the southern end of my fifties and I'm realizing now that although I really love Morse Code, I seriously doubt that I'll be able to be as

Re: [Elecraft] Boldly OT: 6 meter Sporadic-E season and the FT-8 microjuggernaut

Take a look at wsprnet.org. No twitter, nothing funky, just a map showing stations that are transmitting and who hears them. 73 -- Lynn On 6/2/2018 10:28 AM, Scott wrote: 3)  Now to beat up the computer geeks.  Someone could set up a twitter or gab account and advertise it to the ham

Re: [Elecraft] Boldly OT: 6 meter Sporadic-E season and the FT-8 microjuggernaut

Wayne, I'll give answering your question a try. Hopefully I won't piss off everyone... and it won't be too long. 0). First, monitor beacons or participate in the RBN for band openings and then call CQ on open bands. Heck, call CQ on "closed" bands... one never knows. I suspect there are

Re: [Elecraft] Boldly OT: 6 meter Sporadic-E season and the FT-8 microjuggernaut

I really ought not step into this discussion. Obviously the Elecraft Reflector is a mainstay of CW ops. I've been using digital modes one eme since 2003. Back then the introductory program was JT44 which was supplanted by JT65 within a couple years. Then many variants were done to address

Re: [Elecraft] Boldly OT: 6 meter Sporadic-E season and the FT-8 microjuggernaut

As I said, I wasn't taking into account the differences in bandwidth, so my comment wasn't accurate. Dave   AB7E On 6/1/2018 11:28 PM, Josh Fiden wrote: Referenced to the noise floor at what bandwidth? If you're claiming FT8 can copy sigs 20 dB below what you can copy on CW, that's

Re: [Elecraft] Boldly OT: 6 meter Sporadic-E season and the FT-8 microjuggernaut

If the signal to noise ratio is good enough the FT8 tones are clearly audible. The S/N numbers for WSJT modes are referenced to a 2.8 kHz bandwidth. An FT8 signal sounds like a wobbly carrier. Obviously, when trying to copy a weak CW signal we're more likely to choose 250-400 Hz bandwidth.

Re: [Elecraft] Boldly OT: 6 meter Sporadic-E season and the FT-8 microjuggernaut

Referenced to the noise floor at what bandwidth? If you're claiming FT8 can copy sigs 20 dB below what you can copy on CW, that's nonsense and not even true for JT65. Anecdotal info from hardcore 6m guys (translate: real world results) say they're not working anything they couldn't copy on CW.

Re: [Elecraft] Boldly OT: 6 meter Sporadic-E season and the FT-8 microjuggernaut

Considering that FT8 is done with 8-tone frequency-shift keying (8-FSK) at 12000/1920 = 6.25 baud.   I'd like to know how you can get that tone in CW? As far as the S/N threshold of the various WSJT-X  modes (from the protocol specs in the WSJT-X user guide): FT8  : -21 JT4A        

Re: [Elecraft] Boldly OT: 6 meter Sporadic-E season and the FT-8 microjuggernaut

Ahh .. I see.   We're not talking comparable bandwidths here.  My bad. 73, Dave   AB7E On 6/1/2018 7:27 PM, David Gilbert wrote: Can you explain that?  I've done intelligibility tests and anything more than a db or so below the noise level is almost impossible to copy.  Speed of course

Re: [Elecraft] Boldly OT: 6 meter Sporadic-E season and the FT-8 microjuggernaut

Can you explain that?  I've done intelligibility tests and anything more than a db or so below the noise level is almost impossible to copy.  Speed of course has an impact, so I'm talking speeds in the range of 20-25 WPM.  It might be different at much slower speeds. 73, Dave   AB7E On

Re: [Elecraft] Boldly OT: 6 meter Sporadic-E season and the FT-8 microjuggernaut

In celebration of my 74th birthday, I'll try not to seem to be an old curmudgeon. There are several issues that might be affecting the number of CW signals heard. One is the relative lack of CW skills in the general ham population. I'm a poster child for that lack of skill. I passed the 5

Re: [Elecraft] Boldly OT: 6 meter Sporadic-E season and the FT-8 microjuggernaut

If you knew the code you could work that signal on CW.  Quicker too. Wes  N7WS. On 6/1/2018 2:07 PM, John Stengrevics wrote: I worked D41CV on 6 meter FT8 a couple of weeks ago. He was running 15 watts and was -18dB here. If that’s not sub-noise floor, I don’t know what is. 73, John

Re: [Elecraft] Boldly OT: 6 meter Sporadic-E season and the FT-8 microjuggernaut

On 6/1/2018 4:38 PM, David Gilbert wrote: And of course CW is faster ... just 20 db or so less effective for weak signal reception. I think the number is more like 6-10 dB, depending on the skill of the operator. 73, Jim K9YC __

Re: [Elecraft] Boldly OT: 6 meter Sporadic-E season and the FT-8 microjuggernaut

Wrong. FT8 is indeed a sub-noise floor mode like JT65.  Don know where you got the idea it isn't, but FT8 is actually an offshoot of JT65 except it sacrifices a few db for the sake of faster exchanges.  The official FT8 documentation from K1JT, the creator of both, says that it is nominally

Re: [Elecraft] Boldly OT: 6 meter Sporadic-E season and the FT-8 microjuggernaut

OT: 6 meter Sporadic-E season and the FT-8 microjuggernaut What is being overlooked in all of this discussion is that the bulk of today's ham population makes its living at a keyboard. When the bulk of an eight-hour work-day is spent in front of a monitor, it should come as no shock that an e

Re: [Elecraft] Boldly OT: 6 meter Sporadic-E season and the FT-8 microjuggernaut

What is being overlooked in all of this discussion is that the bulk of today's ham population makes its living at a keyboard. When the bulk of an eight-hour work-day is spent in front of a monitor, it should come as no shock that an entire generation will prefer making QSOs with keyboard-keys

Re: [Elecraft] Boldly OT: 6 meter Sporadic-E season and the FT-8 microjuggernaut

Bob, I did not remember that Chicken Little said that! Michael Blake k9...@mac.com > On Jun 1, 2018, at 4:48 PM, Bob McGraw K4TAX wrote: > > Be it CW, RTTY, PSK, SSB, JT65 or other modes, today's computer integration > into the ham shack as produced many

Re: [Elecraft] Boldly OT: 6 meter Sporadic-E season and the FT-8 microjuggernaut

What you say is true, and as a hard-core contester I take advantage of all the automation I can get to maximize my QSO rate. The distinction is between transmitting and receiving. In receiving, the difference is that in CW and SSB my brain is an integral part of the process of getting the

Re: [Elecraft] Boldly OT: 6 meter Sporadic-E season and the FT-8 microjuggernaut

I worked D41CV on 6 meter FT8 a couple of weeks ago. He was running 15 watts and was -18dB here. If that’s not sub-noise floor, I don’t know what is. 73, John WA1EAZ > On Jun 1, 2018, at 5:03 PM, Josh Fiden wrote: > > FT8 is *not* a "sub-noise floor" mode like JT65. You can complete faster

Re: [Elecraft] Boldly OT: 6 meter Sporadic-E season and the FT-8 microjuggernaut

FT8 is *not* a "sub-noise floor" mode like JT65. You can complete faster on CW. It's great that there's so much activity, but far too many crap overdriven signals calling relentlessly. 73 Josh W6XU Sent from my mobile device > __

Re: [Elecraft] Boldly OT: 6 meter Sporadic-E season and the FT-8 microjuggernaut

Be it CW, RTTY, PSK, SSB,  JT65 or other modes, today's computer integration into the ham shack as produced many automated contacts with little to no personal intervention.   Where as one says FT-8 mode is used to rack up countrieswhat about the automated CQ's from memory keyers in CW

[Elecraft] Boldly OT: 6 meter Sporadic-E season and the FT-8 microjuggernaut

A panoramic display is a must IMO. Who's where and on what mode are all readily observable and a click of the mouse puts you where you want to be. I configured such a system to aid in finding where the DX is listening in a split p/u but it does double duty in finding the rare (nowadays) CW

Re: [Elecraft] Boldly OT: 6 meter Sporadic-E season and the FT-8 microjuggernaut

the > morning on 40 meters so I can test out my new homebrew FD rig. It's very > depressing. > Al W6LX > > From: Wayne Burdick > To: Elecraft Reflector > Cc: "k...@yahoogroups.com" ; > elecraft...@yahoogroups.com > Sent: Friday, June 1, 2018 8:47 AM >

Re: [Elecraft] Boldly OT: 6 meter Sporadic-E season and the FT-8 microjuggernaut

s.com" ; elecraft...@yahoogroups.com Sent: Friday, June 1, 2018 8:47 AM Subject: [Elecraft] Boldly OT: 6 meter Sporadic-E season and the FT-8 microjuggernaut At first I thought it was my receiver. Or my antenna farm, limited in scale by a pre-nuptial clause. Or noise caused by the zo

Re: [Elecraft] Boldly OT: 6 meter Sporadic-E season and the FT-8 microjuggernaut

On 6/1/2018 9:59 AM, Al Lorona wrote: I wrote an April Fool's article back in like 1999 (I might still be able to find it on dejanews) describing a make-believe ARRL contest which was totally automated; contesters could come home from work and peruse their logs to see what stations their

Re: [Elecraft] Boldly OT: 6 meter Sporadic-E season and the FT-8 microjuggernaut

I usually check the CW area and the SSB area before hitting FT8. Sometimes call a few CQs. Crickets. . . . . > On Jun 1, 2018, at 11:46 AM, Wayne Burdick wrote: > > At first I thought it was my receiver. Or my antenna farm, limited in scale > by a pre-nuptial clause. Or noise caused by the

Re: [Elecraft] Boldly OT: 6 meter Sporadic-E season and the FT-8 microjuggernaut

orning on 40 meters so I can test out my new homebrew FD rig. It's very > depressing. > Al W6LX > > From: Wayne Burdick > To: Elecraft Reflector > Cc: "k...@yahoogroups.com" ; > elecraft...@yahoogroups.com > Sent: Friday, June 1, 2018 8:47 AM >

Re: [Elecraft] Boldly OT: 6 meter Sporadic-E season and the FT-8 microjuggernaut

; elecraft...@yahoogroups.com Sent: Friday, June 1, 2018 8:47 AM Subject: [Elecraft] Boldly OT: 6 meter Sporadic-E season and the FT-8 microjuggernaut At first I thought it was my receiver. Or my antenna farm, limited in scale by a pre-nuptial clause. Or noise caused by the zomboid army of switc

[Elecraft] Boldly OT: 6 meter Sporadic-E season and the FT-8 microjuggernaut

At first I thought it was my receiver. Or my antenna farm, limited in scale by a pre-nuptial clause. Or noise caused by the zomboid army of switching power supplies oozing inexorably into my personal space. Nope. It turns out the dearth of CW and SSB signals on 6 meters at the height of 2018