[Elecraft] Boldly OT: 6 meter Sporadic-E season and the FT-8 microjuggernaut

[Bill Frantz]

In celebration of my 74th birthday, I'll try not to seem to be 
an old curmudgeon.

There are several issues that might be affecting the number of 
CW signals heard. One is the relative lack of CW skills in the 
general ham population. I'm a poster child for that lack of 
skill. I passed the 5 WPM test when I got my extra. Did that 
mean I could play in the 15 to 40 WPM world we see on the bands? 
Of course not.

I've been trying to improve my CW. I started by chasing some of 
the big DXpeditions. I got so I could recognize my CQ, call 
sign, and TU, which let know whether to press the AE6JV key or 
the 5NN TU key. My vocabulary expanded to recognize things like 
CQ EU etc. and avoid being a complete boor. I also started 
running contests in S&P mode, learning how to decode call signs 
and exchanges, usually only after many repeats. Now I even try 
checking into the weekly Elecraft net. Thanks for putting up 
with me Kevin.

I still like the digital modes. I fell in love with PSK31 after 
operating it a Field Day. It was a lot like computer chatting, 
which I had done as a part of my job in my last job before retirement.

Another is the kind of QSO operators want to have. I was quite 
surprised when one of the younger members of our club -- in his 
30s -- said he liked contesting because he didn't have to listen 
to old men talking about their medical problems. He is a good 
contester and regularly outscores me in contests. This kind of 
operator will be quite happy with FT8, or canned exchanges in CW 
and digital modes. I've met many of them on PSK, even when I try 
to indicate I'm up for a bit of a chat.

I got to really like the automatic features when I was in the 
depths of side effects from my cancer treatment. I could sit 
back in my chair and make contacts without having ot expend a 
lot of the energy I didn't have.

I do think the advertised 20-24 dB below the noise floor is a 
bit of crock, but not entirely wrong. If I understand the 
situation correctly, the noise is measured in a 3KHz band width 
while the signal is 50 Hz wide. That factor of 60 should be 
responsible for 17.8 dB of the advertised noise immunity of the 
mode. The other 2 to 6 dB is a real advantage over CW with the 
tightest K3 DSP bandwidth. (APF can do better, but dies when 
other signals, like DQRM, are near the desired signal.)

When I was operating portable with a barefoot KX3 in New 
Hampshire a month ago using FT8, I had real problems getting all 
that juicy DX in EU to answer me. Finding an open space in the 
band was hard. Finally I tried finding an open transmit window 
and calling CQ. The DX came to me, and I contacted a few ATNOs. 
I had to move frequently as other stations started transmitting 
in the same window I was using. It's always worth pausing to see 
if you still have the window. Here full break in CW has a real 
advantage. SSB has some of the same advantage because 
transmissions aren't synchronized, as they are in FT8.

To try to answer Wayne's question, perhaps setting up schedules 
using the Internet would help. Also calling CQ can help a lot. I 
was asked to test how 15M was holding up in preparation for 
Field Day. I found the band dead until I tried calling CQ. I 
didn't make many contacts, but calling CQ brought stations out 
of the woodwork including some DX.

I agree with Jim's comments about LotW. My truly spectacular 
LotW success was with the 5 FT8 out of state 6M DX contacts I 
made last new years eve. All are LotW confirmed. Out of 88 FT8 
contacts logged in this last trip to New Hampshire, 55 or 62.5% 
have been confirmed with LotW. Compare that with the CQ WPX CW 
contest last weekend. I logged 255 QSOs and have 80 LotW 
confirmations 31.4%). Of course, the WPX contest was quite 
recent, and more confirmations should trickle in. It is also 
almost certain that I blew copying some of the calls which would 
push down the number of confirmations.

73 Bill AE6JV

On 6/1/18 at 8:46 AM, n6kr at elecraft.com (Wayne Burdick) wrote:

>At first I thought it was my receiver. Or my antenna farm, 
>limited in scale by a pre-nuptial clause. Or noise caused by 
>the zomboid army of switching power supplies oozing inexorably 
>into my personal space.
>
>Nope.
>It turns out the dearth of CW and SSB signals on 6 meters at 
>the height of 2018 Spring Sporadic-E season can be traced to 
>one factor: the 24-hour intravenous rave that is FT-8.
>
>Yeah, I get the whole 
>sub-noise-floor-and-not-automated-(wink)-QSO thing. But I’d 
>like to figure out how those of us who enjoy the occasional 
>gear-grinding manual-transmission contact can find each other 
>on this brave new highway. Ideas?
>
>Wayne
>N6KR
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