I thought I'd add my comments...
This time I was operating from a very modest station in terms of antennas
(home!). Having not got my antennas sorted out after moving, I had an HF
inverted vee on 6m, a small Yagi on 2m and various indoor antennas on the
higher bands.
I attempted digital QSOs on only 6m and one on 432 (all FT8), not really having
enough oomph for any meteor scatter/EME (and way too much noise on 6). On 6m,
I certainly heard a lot more activity on FT8 than on CW and made a number of
contacts. Not all were completed in the minimum time, as QSB of one sort or
another required some repeats (sometimes in cases where the signal was loud
enough for CW to be copied solidly). SSB was nearly a dead loss due to the
high noise level. Some of the stations worked on 6m FT8 were calls I had never
heard before in a VHF contest, so yes, there was certainly some new blood
around and I made more QSOs with FT8 than I could have done without it. Mind
you, there were a couple of serious local rovers, who didn't have FT8
capability, and didn't really have time for it anyway (as has been noted by
others).
I described the one 432 FT8 QSO earlier - in short...a QSO was made but it
would have been a LOT faster on CW as FT8 had a lot of trouble with the
multiple signals typical of tropo/aircraft-scatter.
There was a certain amount of confusion regarding contest mode or not...I was
able to quickly switch on the fly (click off the contest mode box and
re-generate the messages) so the QSOs went moderately smoothly. The exchange
is there...it's just a bit slower than with contest mode on, which was NOT much
of a factor with my setup!
I think we ought to just see how things pan out and not make any rule changes.
FT8 worked for me this time due to the high noise, poor antenna and complete
lack of propagation. JT65A might have worked better, for the same reasons, but
I saw no sign of activity. In a serious sporadic opening I'd rather run SSB or
CW and work 'em faster. In my (up to now) rover vehicle there really isn't
room for a computer, let alone the time for FT8 QSOs (late at night I need to
sleep in order to be able to drive the next day!). For some situations it will
be useful and in others it won't be. Hopefully the novelty of FT8 will wear
off and people will remember than when signals are decent (and for people who
aren't interested in digital modes!), CW and SSB will work better and spend
much of their time on the traditional modes.
73,
Steve VE3SMA
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