[Elecraft] Legal Limit With FT8

[Wes]

Welcome to the land of unintended consequences.  To my personal dismay these 
modes have taken off in the DX chasing biz.  (I have a friend who has been on 
many many big-time DXpeditions and is giddy about using FT8, since the DX end 
can sit back and drink coffee). Show me a DXer who doesn't want to break the 
pile up first and you'll be showing an anomaly. Contesters are the same.

Fox and Hound requires the lower frequencies so tuning the dial higher isn't an 
option.  I also suspect that these guys are using limited BW and don't hear the 
higher tones anyway.

If Joe wants to propose things (a sub-band is unenforceable*) why not a separate 
award for FT DXCC?  I have DXCC on RTTY and refuse to add FT QSOs to my total.  
They are different things.  RTTY requires some skill.

* During the recent HD8R DXpedition they operated on 60-meters; on "channels" 
not available to US hams.  Furthermore they operated split, with their listen 
frequency even further from a legal channel.  With a little forethought they 
could have listened down instead of up and I could have easily worked them.  But 
I did not; however, this didn't stop some lids from working them out-of-band.

Wes  N7WS


On 11/10/2021 9:03 PM, Richard wrote:
> I had a discussion about this sort of madness with Joe Taylor, creator of FT8 and WSJT-X. Here's what he had to say about it:
>
> "Hi Richard,
>
> "Yes, it's annoying when people engage in a QRO arms race to make more QSOs or make them more quickly with FT8. Using high power is one thing when conditions demand it, as with some 160 m DX paths, for example. It's quite another thing when high power is not required to make the QSO, but only to help you get through first.
>
> "However, it has always been thus, and there's not much anyone can do about it. As a general rule it's often useful to move up above 2500 Hz or so, audio frequency. Or even to set your dial frequency 1 kHz higher than the default for a band.
>
> "We are also thinking about suggesting a "QRP FT8 sub-band" in which power should be limited to 10 W (say).
>
> 	"-- 73, Joe, K1JT"
>
> Richard
> W4KBX
> ______________________________________________________________
>