First a quick note to those who do not have access to RadCom. The May edition has an obituary for Peter Rhodes. His design for an auto ATU became a club project, mine served me well for many years especially as I did some mods during the building phase. Can you remember the PicaTune?
As mentioned last month I have been experimenting with datamodes.
Because I have difficulties speaking for more than half an hour and my wrist is too tight to operate a Morse key at any sensible speed, I have been using FT8 as my main mode. It is ideal for DXing as the exchange is call plus grid reference and signal strength.
A while back, a new version was released, FT4. This runs at twice the speed of FT8 and the programs in use are stable and relatively bug free. In mid February another version was released for testing, FT2. This Italian program runs at twice the speed of FT4 and 4 times that of FT8. At the time of writing there are two programs to chose from; Decodium Ver 3 and WSJT-X v3.1.0. Both perform in a similar fashion so anyone trying this out can take their pick.
As an aside, the Dinosaurs among us will say that CW is just as fast so why bother? Having tried FT2 I would say the two are very similar, so watch this space for further improvements and possibly an increase in take-up to a 'mainstream' mode.
Over Easter weekend I tried running FT2 in 'auto CQ' mode. It works well but sitting staring at the screen as calls are automatically logged doesn't seem right.
The May edition of RadCom has a descriptive article on the operation of FT8. I found that it answered several questions such as how does it decode so many signals in such a short time? I think that Joe Taylor, the author of this mode, needs a vote of thanks.
Now on to my activity. The month started with 155 DXCCs in the log. Tea time on the first saw 1A4F in the log. Scam? Possibly, but there is a confirmation on EQSL. Also on the 1st I worked TJ1GD/P on AF-095 - one of the rare islands off Cameroon. And I got S21WD for IOTA AS-140.
On the 2nd I was called by VK2WN from OC-001. On the 6th I had a surprise as I had a voice contact with D60DX on Comoros Isl's. Africa is still giving up its secrets with 7Q9BK from Malawi and 3X3A from Roume Is'l in Guinea for AF-051
As I write this I have just worked the following on 20m FT8; C5D The Gambia, JA7DXX Japan, 7P8WR Lesotho, JA1PPW, and JH7CVM, both on AS-007. Not bad for a bit of blue wire & 200W!
And all in 15 minutes.
The QSL card is from Palau and came with a confirmation of Taiwan.
Cheers
Chris G4ZCS
