Topband: FT8, etc VS the world

[ROBERT ESHLEMAN]

I would like to add my word to this long running discourse.  I am 85 years old and have lost most of my hearing as a result of my profession (dentistry), my hobby, (low band DX'ing) and a surgical procedure for my trigeminal neuroglia.  On 160 I have worked and confirmed 336 DXCC entities of which 335 were mostly on cw with several on SSB.  My last new one was T6AA using FT8 and required using all of the skills I need to work the other 335...hours of stalking, knowledge of propagation, frequency selection and path headings as well as timing of my calls during a 5 minute opening.  FT8 has given me a new interest in DX'ing which I had just about lost. I started DX'ing in 1950 and have lived through most of the huge changes in our hobby and the resistance to every one of them.  This is only a tempest in a teapot.  FT8 and its cousins are valid DX modes.  Bob W4DR, ex-W4QCW