[CQ-Contest] FT8 not allowed in Winter Field Day?

[Richard Ferch]

There is an underlying technical issue here. The FT8 data protocol is very
tightly packed, and there is no room in it for arbitrary exchanges (other
than the 13-character "free text" messages, which for various reasons are
not suitable for contest use). The current 77-bit FT8 protocol does support
the ARRL Field Day contest exchange, but it only supports categories A-F.
The Winter Field Day exchange categories H, I and O can't be sent or
decoded with FT8 as currently implemented. Reconciling these two would
appear to require either changes to the contest rules, or changes to the
FT8 protocol implementation in the WSJT-X code.

73,
Rich VE3KI