[SADXA] FT8 & slow baud rates

[Telegrapher]

Nice thing about FT8 is that you don't have to wait long, if your 
monitoring the frequency anyway to tell what's happening with the band.  
A few cycles of the second hand will tell you where the hot signals 
are.  However, that doesn't mean you can get back to that particular 
station.  I was trying to capture the PJ4 station this morning on 17M.  
I called on freq, off freq, using F/H etc.  Even though his signal was 
as high as a +12 at one time he would not answer my calls.  So i jumped 
down to 15 and worked him on that band within a couple of minutes.  
Course now different bands, different propagation and mostly, different 
antennas!  Same power though.  You can certainly watch the band 
conditions change several times in one minute which you can't do on very 
well with CW or SSB.

It's been a boon to amateurs which has caused a great increase in 
activity.  That can be viewed in more than one way.  Sure been a killer 
to CW though but i wonder how many CW ops made the jump and whether or 
not most of the users of FT8 are really non- cw users or No-code types.

Two parts here.

Wanna play with slow baud rates?  get on board with the fellows down on 
630 and 2200 meters.  They are using a mode called "WSQ". So far the 
results seem to be much better than the JT modes they were using 
although some are still using those modes.  The software developer is a 
fellow from ON land i believe and participates with quick response to 
the users.  Makes changes to the software upon recommendation for 
improvement by the users. Remember those guys are running less than a 
watt to the antenna and are being heard some very long distances.  I 
forgot what the transmission length for a single transmission is but i 
think it's several minutes, maybe more.

Larry

W0OGH