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

[Jim Brown]

On 10/25/2017 10:17 AM, Chortek, Robert L. wrote:
> I rarely weigh in these debates (and don’t even know what these digital modes are except in the most general terms) but I don’t see any movement whatsoever to (a) require folks to use digital modes, or (b) prevent folks from using the traditional modes they enjoy have enjoyed for years.
>
> I just don’t see a problem here.

I've been working on QRP WAS on Topband for several years, and last fall 
was down to needing WV, SC, and VT.  All QSOs were CW, and made during 
contests. A major reason those states are tough to work QRP is that 
Topband ops stay up late during contests, but go to bed when the band 
closes to EU. Another is that if a station includes one RX antenna, it's 
beaming to EU.

I use WSJT modes a lot on 6M chasing grids, and last fall, started 
monitoring the 160M JT65 frequency. Over about five months, I logged 
(SWL) more than 950 different stations from every US state except VT, 
most VE provinces, all continents, and about 20 countries. A sked 
produced a QSO with a station in the WV panhandle. On an average night I 
copied at least 30-40 stations running JT65. Rarely did I hear more CW 
stations than I could count with the fingers of one hand. One night I 
made the only QSO with EU (an SM station) of the season, and running 
about 1kW; the dozen or so EU stations I logged (again SWL), are the 
only ones received here in more than three years! EU is not easy on 
Topband from NorCal.  And by the way -- all that JT65 activity is packed 
into about 2 kHz of bandwidth!

IMO, traditional topband operation IS a dying thing. How many OTs will 
deign to respond to a weak CQ from an op new to topband to provide 
encouragement?  How many of us find topband noise levels growing every 
year? How many of us take the time to chase down and kill the sources? 
How many of these sources are out of our control? How many of us have 
space for decent 160 TX and RX antennas?  I do --  three TX and four RX 
-- but I'm one of the lucky few. And my noise level increases every year.

K1JT's WSJT modes offer a solution to the noise issue, by their ability 
to decode signals 10-15 dB deeper into the noise than even the best CW 
ops can copy.  Many of us have fun on 6M making QSOs via meteor scatter 
using K1JT's MSK144.

73, Jim K9YC