[OKDXA] FT8 and Computer Time

[Jeff Martin]

  Ever wonder why you are not decoding the FT8 station, or he is not
decoding you? Perhaps your computer or his computer time is off. My laptop
time will drift by a couple of seconds over a day's period of time. Timing
is critical with the sequencing of FT8 or FT4 signals. If you have your
computer set to sync with a windows time source, that may be sufficient.
Some use other programs like Dimension 4 (D4). I use a little hockey puck
USB device that pulls time from the GPS satellites along with a program
called NMEATime. When I was in VP2V, my hockey puck device wasn't working. I
didn't take time to mess with it then. I later found that its port number
had changed in windows... thank you windows... Anyway, if you don't have
internet or for some other reason you can't sync with a time source, another
handy program to have is TimeFudge, available from the QRZ page of W9MDB:
https://www.qrz.com/db/W9MDB .
  Look at the DT column showing several decodes on the display of FT8. The
DT number should be 0.0 or close to it. If you see numbers up above 1.0 plus
or minus you may need to adjust your clock. A time sync program would do
this automatically. Or you can do it manually with TimeFudge. I used
TimeFudge every day from VP2V... when I remembered... hi... Hope this
helps...

73,
Jeff - K5WE