I have been waiting a while to see what others experiences were with FT8
and the June contest, in case my experience was unique. It doesn't appear
to be.
First off, I worked VP9I on 6 meter CW Sunday afternoon for country #50 on
6 meters, so the contest was worth it. That was also the only new grid I
worked in the contest.
My experience sounds pretty much like the one that N9LB expressed. I have
been doing FT8 since the of April, and have made a couple of hundred QSOs
with it. In the couple of weeks leading up to the June contest I worked 1
new 6 meter country-Guatamala, and 5 new grids on 6m using FT8, 4 in Mexico
and the TG grid (EK44).
On Saturday we had pretty limited Es here in Oklahoma so FT8 appeared to be
an asset. I caught a few brief Es openings with it to Arizona, California,
South Carolina, and Virginia. I even worked a few close in grids on FT8
groundwave and copied one I still need-DM93, so I know a QSO with that grid
is possible.
On Sunday the band was open all day, first to Arizona and California, and
then to all of the eastern US. 50.313 was best described as a
"Cluster____" and I don't mean DX cluster. Having 150 stations all of
roughly the same frequency is bound to be a disaster. Imagine 150 stations
all on 50.125 using SSB. It wouldn't work, so we spread out from 50.125 to
50.200 or higher. I worked what stations I could on SSB and CW, but there
weren't that many. Everyone appeared to be hanging around on 50.313
running FT8.
I have been on 6 meters and I think I have participated in every June VHF
contest since 1992, although I did forget to send my log in once or twice.
This was probably the least fun I have ever had in a June contest with a
big 6 meter opening. I would call one station on FT8 for 2 or 3 minutes
with no luck. Move to another one, call, same result...... It appears
that many of the bigger contest stations were not having that great of luck
because they were constantly CQing without working stations either. I
think the shear QRM on that frequency overloaded FT8 for most people and
their computers were just not decoding anything. I won't even get into the
problems with people calling you in non-contest mode, or calling you while
you were trying to work someone else.
I worked 44 grids on 6 meters. Had FT8 not been invented and everyone was
still on CW and SSB I think I would have worked at least twice that many
grids. I don't have a large 6 meter station, and probably not even a
medium one, but I have worked over 100 grids on 6 in a single VHF contest
at least twice, and I think maybe 3 times. This wasn't one of them.
I hope something gets worked out FT8wise before the 2019 June VHF contest.
People either need to:
a. Spread out more on FT8, as was suggested. Maybe from 50.313 to 50.320.
b. Use narrow filters on receive. It will obviously greatly cut back on
the number of stations you are decoding, but you might be able to work some
of them
c. Use CW/SSB during openings and save FT8 for slower times. Maybe this
will happen after the novelty of FT8 wears off. As was mentioned earlier,
the fastest you can make a FT8 QSO is 1 per minute. I am sure W2SZ, W4IY,
and others can run at 4 SSB QSOs per minute during a big opening.
If this is the new normal for the June VHF contest, I will probably get on
now and then, try to work a few new grids, if I can find any, and watch a
lot of baseball on TV that weekend.
73 John AF5CC
On Wed, Jun 13, 2018 at 4:37 PM, Lloyd - N9LB <lloydberg@charter.net> wrote:
> My observations...
>
> 6M was frequently open for the week leading up to the ARRL June VHF
> Contest. I had a chance to play with JT8 during that week. It worked
> well, the weak signal capabilities on a non-congested band were remarkable,
> and I collected many new Fred Fish grids and four new DXCC entities.
>
> However during the contest FT8 really folded up. 50. 313 was severely
> overloaded ( actually 50.313 to 50.316 MHz )
>
> Hours of wasted calling, scrambled calls and grids, reception of "one
> shot" CQs, never to be detected again, partial contacts never completed, no
> clear spots in the Wide Graph spectrum display to TX, etc.
>
> 3KHz just won't hold all the stations that used to occupy 50.100-50.300.
> There needs to be several additional FT8 base frequencies ( maybe 50.316,
> 50.319, 50.323, 50.326, 50.329 maybe even more ??? )
>
> I assume this limitation has already been discovered and that is what lead
> to the special "DXpedition Mode", but that that won't be of use in a band
> opening during a contest like the June VHF Test.
>
> 73
>
> Lloyd - N9LB EN52
>
> P.S. What the hell is wrong with the guys that were calling "CQ DX" all
> contest long and never responded to any NA stations during the contest when
> the band was open to most of NA ???
>
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