[ILQSO] FT8 questions

[Danny Pease]

Hi Mike,

I briefly tried and could not make FT8 work for multiple counties, but I am nothing more than a casual user of FT8, many have made it work for other events, but with much shorter exchanges.

In the past, very few QSO's have been made on any digital modes during eth ILQSO, just not that many wanting to do digital. That said, there are many phone ops that do not use CW and a digital QSO counts the same points as a CW and there are a growing number using digital modes in the past couple of years, mostly due to FT8. It would be a great benefit to digital operators to settle on a recommended mode for the ILQP so those that do not use CW have the chance at the higher points using digital. It is too late to really address that for this weekend but maybe something to work on for next year.

Danny NG9R 

-----Original Message-----
From: ilqso-bounces at mailman.qth.net [mailto:ilqso-bounces at mailman.qth.net] On Behalf Of Black Michael via ILQSO
Sent: Wednesday, October 16, 2019 10:29 PM
To: ilqso at mailman.qth.net; Don Pitchford
Subject: Re: [ILQSO] FT8 questions

Not going to work well at all.  Far too limited with only 13 chars available.
You can test messages yourself like this one that shows a 1x4 can't even send CQ with one county
 C:\WSJT\wsjtx\bin>ft8code "CQ W9MDB ADAM"    Message                               Decoded                             Err i3.n3---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1. CQ W9MDB ADAM                         CQ W9MDB                              *  4.  Nonstandard calls
A 1x3 can at least CQ with county though....
C:\WSJT\wsjtx\bin>ft8code "CQ NG9R ADAM"    Message                               Decoded                             Err i3.n3---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1. CQ NG9R ADAM                          CQ NG9R ADAM                             0.0 Free text
But not in reply to anybody else if even another 1x4
C:\WSJT\wsjtx\bin>ft8code "N9JF NG9R ADAM"    Message                               Decoded                             Err i3.n3---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1. N9JF NG9R ADAM                        <...>                                 *  4.  Nonstandard calls
Could do it this way but only with one county

C:\WSJT\wsjtx\bin>ft8code "DE NG9R ADAM"    Message                               Decoded                             Err i3.n3---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1. DE NG9R ADAM                          DE NG9R ADAM                             0.0 Free text



 

    On Wednesday, October 16, 2019, 08:02:41 PM CDT, Don Pitchford via ILQSO <ilqso at mailman.qth.net> wrote:  
 
  Danny, and others,It is possible to set the counties in the free text screens, and manually send them in order. It works. When FT-8 first came about I tried some free-text stuff with another ham. It's pretty painful. More importantly, everyone in the contest would need to be doing it the same, or it will lead to a bunch of broken contacts. That's my biggest complaint about FT-8; most hams just use it as-is and don't create ways to make it more useful. I'll boot up the computer tonight and see if I can come up with a reasonable suggestion for formatting the free text screens that might make it usable for ILQP.Don, W9EBK
    On Wednesday, October 16, 2019, 01:41:05 PM CDT, Danny Pease <dpease at adams.net> wrote:  
 
 There have been a few questions asked about using FT8 for the ILQSO Party. I
know it is not friendly to non-standard reports but has someone taken the
time to see if it is possible to make FT8 work for the possibly lengthy
multi-county exchanges?

Danny NG9R

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