Topband: FT8 - the end of 160m old school DXing? (long)

Wed Oct 25 08:06:19 EDT 2017

Bill, don't give up. There is still plenty of magic in ham radio.
I get my jollies using vintage and homebrew gear. Can still smell
the dust on the hot tubes. There is a good bit of activity on the
bands by us BA and HB ops. Also there are those of us who enjoy
building rigs from the 1920's and 30's. Parts are still around and
most circuits can be as simple as ya want. We would be happy to have
you, and others, join the Antique Wireless Assoc. and/or participate
in our on-air events using the old tubes and circuits. For me at
least, I get a lot of satisfaction using my HB 1924 Meissner osc on
160m at about 5 watts input.

I used a window screen with my DX-40 on ten meters back in the early
60's ...just to see if it worked....it did load up, can't remember if
I made a contact....73 de Bill K4JYS

----- Original Message -----
From: "Bill Cromwell" <wrcromwell at gmail.com>
To: topband at contesting.com
Sent: Wednesday, October 25, 2017 7:22:16 AM
Subject: Re: Topband: FT8 - the end of 160m old school DXing? (long)

Heh,

I have found myself thinking more and more in recent years of just 
dropping ham radio. Those psychologists may have oversimplified things a 
little but there is plenty of meat on those bones. The radio hook was 
set for me when my father and I were cruising the bands on one of those 
big old radios that stood on the floor (1950s). A Zenith model radio 
that was also parlor furniture. We had a pair of window screens 
connected as the antenna and we intercepted radio traffic from a 
mountain climbing expedition on the Matterhorn!! We are/were in central 
michigan. Three days later that was on the "news" and I recall the 
feeling of "that's old news". The smell of the hot dust on those old 
vacuum tubes. The feel of the controls in my hand. Hearing those voices 
so vary far away. The glow of the dial lights (the tubes were hidden 
inside the 'furniture').

All of those senses get involved with um... real radio. If we take away 
one or more of them the hobby is diminished. I have fldigi here for 
*looking* at the digi modes. So far fldigi does not produce any sound 
for my ears. I have rarely used it because of that. More recently I have 
simultaneously run a DSP program just so I can hear what is happening.

One of my other hobbies (involves all of the senses) is making music. I 
have acoustic (no electronics) instruments and perform with other 
musicians who use acoustic instruments. It always sounds better than the 
electronic junk music and the interaction with other musicians is the 
same a the human interaction between hams (as opposed to interaction 
between computers). Certainly that 'other' music is valid as music. 
Those other modes on the bands are valid as ham radio. But some of us 
have other preferences and we will always have them. I have noticed that 
some of the 'new' hams are taking up our modes so there will be others 
to work on the air - hopefully.

Recently some of us were playing to an audience at a community center 
when the lights went out for a couple of minutes and a couple of times. 
We never missed a beat :) Sometimes the personal skills developed in ham 
radio can generate similar stories. So lets all maintain our ham 
licenses and continue using our favorites modes.

Now..how do I get that FT8 running?

73,

Bill  KU8H

On 10/25/2017 06:37 AM, Arthur Delibert wrote:
> I’m sure there will be people who say FT8 is just “progress.”  But some psychologists divide people according to whether their preferred mode of experience is auditory, visual or kinesthetic (touch).  I think most of us who are addicted to radio are primarily auditory – on one level, that’s why we’re in this hobby.  So, no surprise that we find radio without the auditory component to be unfulfilling.
>
> Art Delibert, KB3FJO
>
> Sent from Mail<https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=550986> for Windows 10
>
> From: Steve Ireland<mailto:vk6vz at arach.net.au>
> Sent: Wednesday, October 25, 2017 4:26 AM
> To: Topband reflector<mailto:topband at contesting.com>
> Subject: Topband: FT8 - the end of 160m old school DXing? (long)
>
> G’day
>
> As a committed (yeah, that’s probably the right word - complete with white jacket that laces up at the back) topbander since 1970, I’ve never been so intrigued and disturbed by anything on the band as the emergence of the Franke-Taylor FT-8 digital mode.
>
> For me, radio has always been all about what I audibly hear. I love all the sounds that radio signals make - and even miss the comforting sound of Loran that I grew up with around 1930kHz as a teenager in south-east England. Yeah, I am one sick puppy.
>
> With the emergence of high resolution bandscopes through SDR technology over the last decade, I embraced that as it meant that I could find what DX stations I wanted to hear and contact quicker and more easily (and, in particular, before those stations who didn’t have the same technology).
>
> It was really exciting and enhanced the sensual experience of radio by being able to see what I could hear (and no dinosaur me, I was an SDR fan boy!).
>
> During this period, there has also been an extraordinary development in digital radio modes, in particular by Joe Taylor K1JT.
>
> As a topbander I could see that these modes in which you ‘saw’ signals through the medium of computer screen or window as being a remarkable technical achievement, but had relatively little to do what I and the vast majority of active radio amateurs practiced as radio on 160m, as it had nothing to do with the audible.
>
> The good thing was that I could see that good old CW and Silly Slop Bucket (you can see where my prejudices lie) that I like to use were still the modes of choice for weak signal DX topband radio contact as these fancy digital modes were either very slow or, if they weren’t, were not good at dealing with signals that faded up and down or were covered in varying amounts of noise.
>
> While some amateurs seemed to have lost the pleasure of actually hearing signals in favour of viewing them on their computer screens, I felt secure that these digital modes were just a minor annoyance and any serious DXer or DXpedition was never going to seriously going to use them, particularly on my first and all-time love topband, for other than experimentation.
>
> Then, out of the blue, along comes FT-8. Joe and Steve Franke K9AN have quietly created the holy grail of digital operation with a mode that can have QSOs almost as fast as CW and SSB and over the last eight weeks 160m DXing has changed, perhaps for ever.
>
> Where once there were a few weak CW and SSB signals (I am in VK6, which is a looong way from anywhere with a population so we only ever hear a few), I can see that the busiest part of the band is 1840 kHz – FT-8 central.  On some nights I can see FT-8 signals on the band but no CW or SSB.
>
> There are countries I’ve dreamed for 20 years of hearing on 160m SSB/CW (for example, KG4) regularly appearing on DX clusters and I can see the heap of FT-8 activity on my band scope.
>
> Frustration sets in and I even downloaded the FT-8 software but, when it comes down to it,  I just can’t use it. My heart isn’t in it.
>
> My computer will be talking to someone else’s computer and there will be no sense of either a particular person’s way of sending CW or the tone of their voice (even the way some my SSB mates overdrive their transceivers is actually creating nostalgia in me). The human in radio has somehow been lost.
>
> I think back to my best-ever 160m SSB contact with Pedro NP4A and I can still hear the sound of his voice, his accent, when he came up out of the noise and to my amazement answered me on my second call, with real excitement in his voice. Pure radio magic!
>
> So I am sitting here, feeling depressed and wondering if overnight I have become a dinosaur and this is the beginning of the end of topband radio as I’ve always enjoyed it.
>
> Now, over to you other topbanders, especially those who have dabbled with FT-8 and live in more populous areas. Has the world really turned upside down and what do you think the future holds?
>
> Vy 73
>
> Steve, VK6VZ/G3ZZD
>
>
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