Topband: 160

[Artek Manuals]

To further Paul's point , CW "readers" have been around for decades. 
Automating the reply process on CW seems to me to be a "relatively 
simple" programing exercise with a USB keyer.� Heck by adding the 
ability to activate the frequency scan of most modern transceivers to 
mix I can scan up and down the band looking for or calling CQ with a CW 
robot if I wanted to, again the programing exercise is trivial compared 
to the original FT8 concept and the technology involved in weak signal 
processing that came out of deep space telelmtry

One major difference between CW and FT8 is that with CW (and RTTY for 
that matter) you really need to "search" a range of frequencies to find 
a station to work. perhaps FT8/FT4 will/needs to evolve to say a "range 
of frequencies" say 14075 to 14100 (not a proposal just an example) 
rather than collecting� every one on 14074 (most major dxpeditions do 
this now by necessity) ...With the growing popularity of FT8 seems like 
the 50 or so subchannels available is quickly filling up at peak times. 
The net of this has been inexperienced ops sadly not paying attention to 
the waterfall display to see if anyone is using the a particular� audio 
subschannel before calling on top of someone else. No surprise there 
either, I am always amazed at how many CW ops call on the DX frequency 
even though the OP sends "UP" at the end of every transmission.

For those of you banging at the gates with your pitchforks wanting to 
burn the monster at the stake I say get out your pen and paper in 
October and send in your paper log for Sweepstakes, unplug your memory 
keyer and go back to your J-38.� Yeah if they invented time travel for 
real tomorrow, I would likely go back to 1965 in a heart beat, but I 
will miss my computer terribly. I will miss the fact that I can run a KW 
on 6M and never have to worry about TVI to Channel 2 or 3. Though I am 
seldom a new technology adopter ( I came to FT8 only this year) ..change 
is inevitable ...evolve or die my friends. Life ( and amateur radio for 
that matter) is never "easy" or really comfortable.

Dave
NR1DX

On 8/2/2019 10:47 PM, Paul Christensen wrote:
>> If I can set up my station on ft8 and have it run automatically and 
>> collect new entities...
> If you want to fully automate FT8, there's a presentation available on 
> YouTube. It only requires installing Quick Macros (QM). No hacking to 
> the core program is required. During my setup, it was necessary to 
> start, stop and replay the video many times before it was running 
> correctly. But once running, it's easy enough to further automate 
> WSJT-X to change bands based on the PC clock (e.g., operate 17m-6m 
> only during daylight hours. The next logical step is to automate based 
> on propagation software as well as automatically turn rotators and 
> switch antennas based on propagation software prediction.
>
> Be aware that once QM is controlling WSJT-X, you can move around 
> WSJT-X windows on the desktop but you cannot resize a window where any 
> control takes place. Any tampering of the window size almost 
> necessitates reprogramming QM macros.
>
> I'm a core CW op. That won't change even if I'm the last CW OP 
> standing. Despite automating FT8, I rarely operate that mode and I 
> don�t collect awards. Never have. The exercise to fully automate was 
> to prove to myself that it was possible, and as an experiment to see 
> how far automation can be taken.
>
> Paul, W9AC
>
> _________________
> Searchable Archives: http://www.contesting.com/_topband - Topband 
> Reflector

-- 
Dave
Manuals at ArtekManuals.com
www.ArtekManuals.com


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