[VHFcontesting] Weird ft8 contact on 2M. Did anyone else see it?

[Alexander Svirsky]

Paul, I'm sure you're talking about a weird FT8 reception and not a 2-way QSO.

I have also seen something like this happen. Last summer when I left  
the radio and the computer on overnight after a contest I apparently  
received one side of a QSO attempt in the South Pacific, on 432 IIRC.  
I have no explanation for this.

My WSJT-X installation on Linux apparently by default saves a sound  
recording of every 15-second window, and it saves a log of all  
messages received and sent. I have set aside the sound samples and log  
entries of that reception.

Perhaps you also have the sound samples and original log entries for  
your reception. Check you WSTJ-X folders to see if you have them. I'm  
not sure how to recreate them easily as WSJT-X "playbacks" to see what  
really happened. I've thought about dedicating a computer and radio to  
just logging VHF FT8 freqs for crazy receptions like this, but I'm  
sure the sound files would eat up disk space quickly.

I don't think we're seeing a software issue. The message wasn't random  
and the grid square and the calls received make sense. I suspect that  
VHF freqs sometimes bounce and propagate in unexpected ways and the  
FT8 algorithm may be sufficient to decode a mouse fart on the other  
side of the planet.

Alexander N1PRW