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

[garyk9gs]

I was riding to a DX club meeting on Monday night with a friend who recently started playing around with FT8.
He said he's worked 60+ countries in a week or so using 100w.  Not on 160m.  He said that many of the QSOs were 10 or more db below the noise and many he could not hear at all.
All it would take is a few lines of additional code (the QSO itself is already automated) to log and find the next contact and one could go to work in the morning and come home to find out what you've worked.  The software even highlights the "new ones".
He described making a QSO as much fun as watching paint dry.
Not for me.  This is kind of like the driverless cars that everyone is saying will revolutionise transportation.   I just don't get the attraction.   Both technologies sound boring.  I'll go read a good book instead.
Yeah, maybe I'm old fashioned but I'm only 55.


73-Gary K9GS 
-------- Original message --------From: "Wes Attaway (N5WA)" <wesattaway at bellsouth.net> Date: 10/25/17  8:11 AM  (GMT-06:00) To: 'Steve Ireland' <vk6vz at arach.net.au>, 'Topband reflector' <topband at contesting.com> Subject: Re: Topband: FT8 - the end of 160m old school DXing? (long) 
I agree with all the comments re digital modes such as FT8.  I was
discussing this recently with a local ham and I told him that I thought ARRL
could create a new "DXCC While Being Asleep" award.  With FT8 all you have
to do is to click your mouse once in a while.  The rest of the time you
could just be dozing while the computer is making a few QSOs.  You really
don't have to be awake while the QSOs (if you want to call them that) are
being made.

   -------------------
Wes Attaway (N5WA)
(318) 393-3289 - Shreveport, LA
Computer/Cellphone Forensics
AttawayForensics.com
   -------------------

-----Original Message-----
From: Topband [mailto:topband-bounces at contesting.com] On Behalf Of Steve
Ireland
Sent: Wednesday, October 25, 2017 3:25 AM
To: Topband reflector
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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