[Elecraft] FT8: "Magic radio"?

[Grant Youngman]

FT8 is great technology.   Maybe the Fox/Hound mode is, too.  Personally, I got bored with it after about a week and moved on.  Certainly, it’s the cat’s meow if all you care about is logging someone, somewhere, without doing any work, other than making sure you have the right Windows drivers installed and the right boxes checked, and don’t care to find out what the other guy’s name is or what he/she does when they aren’t punching at their own keyboard (well, you don’t even have to do THAT very often).   Other than that, and reading all the issues people have with it and their machines/software they know nothing about (while blaming their radio) on the lists — meh.

You can use your radio as just one more peripheral if you want.  Good for you.  Enjoy.  I’ll be elsewhere on the bands.
 
I’m old, going on 60 years licensed … and have a curmudgeonly point of view, no doubt.  But …  I spent my entire working life doing many innovative things with computers and software and automation in general.  I’ve never used my radio as just one more Windows peripheral … and won’t.  It isn’t that hard to avoid it … and it’s a whole lot more fun.

Grant NQ5T
K3 #2091, KX3 #8342

> On Jul 3, 2018, at 4:10 PM, ANDY DURBIN <a.durbin at msn.com> wrote:
> 
> I have been using WSJT-X since before version 1.0 was made available.  I was also an early adopter of JT9 and FT8.  I have enjoyed using JT65, JT9, and FT8 for HF and 6 m QSO.  Using DXpedition mode to work KH1 was a different experience.  I felt that the operator had been taken much too far "out of the loop".   I'm glad I made more KH1 QSO using CW than with FT8 and I found them much more satisfying.
> 
> FT8 DXPedition mode is certainly not for everyone but if it was the only way I could make a QSO with KH1 I'd have been glad to have it in my log.    KH1 was DX 200 worked CW in 4 years.  That was nice and only the magic of propagation was involved.