[SADXA] Fwd: Re: XX9D QSO?

[Jim Wysocki]

I thought our readers might find this email exchange to be interesting.

Paul K5ESW sent a snippet of his WSJT-X ALL.txt file in which he 
recorded some of this morning's XX9D transmissions.  It looks like he 
never heard my signal but he saw their end of my QSO.  I explained to 
him (and now to you) about what I did to get the contact.  It's exactly 
the opposite of what most people have been told to do.  You might find 
this technique to be productive.

By the way as long as you haven't erased it, the ALL.txt file it's a 
great resource to reconstruct past FT8 events.  It shows every one of 
your transmissions, along with what was received.  Everything is in 
chronological order.  It can be read by any word processing program, 
including Notepad and Wordpad, and this file can be easily searched for 
calls, signal reports, times, and frequencies.  That's what K5ESW did below.

Jim  W9FI

-------- Forwarded Message --------
Subject: 	Re: XX9D QSO?
Date: 	Tue, 19 Feb 2019 08:08:11 -0700
From: 	Jim Wysocki <wysocki1 at mindspring.com>
To: 	Paul at PaulFerguson.us



Paul, it's always interesting to see a QSO from somebody else's 
perspective.  What you saw was the conclusion of between 15 and 20 
minutes of work.  No this wasn't Fox & Hound mode.  I tried several 
variations of modes and offsets before I figured out what to do.  Here's 
what I did to get XX9D on 40m FT8.

First I moved the baseline frequency from 7.074 up to 7.075.  Then I 
locked my RX on their 493 Hz offset and began calling at +1000 Hz 
without effect.  So I called below their transmit frequency by a couple 
of hundred Hertz and nailed them right away.  My operating technique was 
completely the opposite of what most people are used to doing.  This was 
a standard-mode FT8 QSO.  My transmit power was 250 watts, to a 2 
element linear-loaded 40m Yagi at 55 feet.

I also got them on 30m FT8 using standard Fox & Hound techniques.  There 
I used 175 watts to a dipole.

There doesn't seem to be any systematic way to get an FT8 QSO with them, 
so you'll have to experiment.  Once you figure out the operator's method 
you'll be able to make the QSO right away.  This may be their way of 
weeding out most of the callers.  It certainly seems to be succeeding.

GL and 73,  Jim  W9FI

On 2/19/2019 7:20 AM, Paul Ferguson wrote:
> Hi Jim,
>
> Congrats on your XX9D QSO on 40m this morning. I copied this:
>
> ---------------
> 190219_115815 Transmitting 7.076 MHz FT8: XX9D K5ESW -03
> 115830 -11 0.5 493 ~ W9FI XX9D R-14
> 115900 -9 0.5 493 ~ W9FI XX9D R-14
> 115900 4 0.1 1099 ~ XX9D W7DO EM94
> 115930 -6 0.5 493 ~ W9FI XX9D 73
> ---------------
>
> I did not get thru to the XX9, but I assume he was working Fox/Hound
> mode. Is this correct?
>
> XX9 was using 7.076 plus 493 hz offset. This seems like a bad choice
> because 7.074 is a standard FT8 frequency, and anyone operating 7.074
> using an offset of greater than 2000 hz offset will be interfere with
> stations in the lower offset of 7.076.
>
> Later they switched to a 7.070 base but prop was fading here.
>
> I did manage to snag them on 80m FT8 some days ago.
>
> 73,
> Paul
> K5ESW
> Raleigh, NC
>