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

[Roger Cooke]

I have used JT65. It's just like watching paint dry, but the only 
reason for using it was because I was competing in the CDXC 
CHallenge last year. Without using JT65 I would not have won the 6m 
section.

This year, again using not JT65 but FT8, I had to use it because so 
very few were using conventional modes.

   These are slot filler modes. You cannot really tell where the 
station is within the passband, even if you can hear him. However 
the protocol takes care of you netting, returning a report, and 
giving a confirmation so all you have to worry about is making the 
coffee.

   This is why my friend Roy G3ZIG has just taken down his EME 
array, a bay of 12 12el yagis, all tuned for max gain and very well 
constructed.

It might be a 9 day wonder. I used it, got no real satisfaction from 
working a station but then the other modes are suffering in exactly 
the same way.

Try having a proper QSO, name/QTH/WX/rig/ants, and a general chat. 
It is nigh impossible these days. I miss some of my SK friends, 
life-time friendships built from a first QSO. We visited each other, 
kept regular skeds and that WAS amateur radio.  Having a QSO these 
days is a 10 second ( or less ) event, swapping 5nn 73, or just 
"Five nine" with no 73 on SSB. What's the flaming point?  Might be 
good for award chasing, but when it is just a common USA station or 
EU station issuing garbage like that, what chance is there of having 
a conversation? Mostly they are meaningless reports anyway and you 
feel obligated to respond like for like.

   I have no objection to that in a DX-pedition situation, but let's 
try and have a conversation if possible.

  Please disregard the above, it's a waste of time, but I do feel 
better.......O:-)


73 de Roger G3LDI






On 25/10/2017 14:38, JAYB1943 at OPTONLINE.NET wrote:
> I guess I don’t understand what makes the new Digital modes any different
> from old RTTY...the “sounds” are similar enuf to learn to love and the words
> are still displayed on (in the old days) paper or a screen.
> There are many audibly-compromised hams out there – such as me – who really
> welcome a mode that doesn’t require sharp hearing to work CW or especially
> SSB.
> In addition, I have recruited several new (young) hams by attracting them
> with the computer-based modes...all but eliminates “mike-fright” and
> “key-freezing”.
> I guess a lot of old-timers (I am 75) feel that the awards like DXCC and
> WAS, etc. earned with FT8 have less merit than they did with good-old CW or
> Phone or RTTY.  But few people objected when CW filters were invented or SSB
> replaced AM or smaller, lighter, more efficient radios replaced the old tube
> stuff...so is a CW DXCC earned in 1948 somehow worth more than one earned in
> 2000 using these major tech improvements ?
> There will always be a place for CW and voice modes in ham radio for those
> that want to practice those..and remember one of the major facets of ham
> radio is to “advance the state of the radio art” which surely describes the
> new digital modes.
> Room for everybody out there, guys....73 Jay NY2NY
> _________________
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