[Elecraft] FT8: "Magic radio"?

[W5RDW]

Soon after I started FT8 in April, I like others wondered why I am sitting in
front of the 'tube" listening to the "whales" talk to each other (at least
thats what it sound like!). I quickly got bored, but since there really
wasn't any good DX floating around, I got addicted to it, just working for
WAS, etc.

One day in April, I  had an Elmer tell me about /pskreporter/, to use in
seeing where I was being heard, etc. One evening when 20M was pretty wide
open to the east (AS and EU Russia) and west (Japan, China, VK/ZL), I
noticed hams were being reported all around Uzbekistan, one of the dozen
remaining entities I need. I looked up on a few websites that had active UK?
Uzbekistan hams on the air. There was UK9AA, active and on FT8!!!! I had
never heard Uzbekistan in many years and was excited maybe I could work him
on FT8.

Well, you can guess the rest of the story. I emailed him, Fedor, and we set
up a sked, eventually completing the qso on FT8 on 20 meters! With 70 watts
at that! Wow, that was easy!

Since then, I have worked over 75 countries w/o even trying on the new
digital mode! It's still not as exciting as grabbing a rare on on CW, but it
sure gives one another tool to work the rare one!



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Roger W5RDW
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Sent from: http://elecraft.365791.n2.nabble.com/