OK, I played with the new mode for a while last night, and feel a little better talking about it now. FT8 is a new mode with a lot of interest. Twenty meters at times was wall-to-wall with signals on my waterfall, without a space to squeeze in … definitely lots of people trying it out!
As I mentioned before, it’s FAST! If you’re used to JT65 or JT9 modes, it’s a screamer. It’s almost unnerving to try and keep up. Remember when you were scrambling when you first started learning and using the JT modes? Well, this is that experience on steroids. It’ll get more calm as I get more familiar with it.
I did notice a couple of anomalies while I was operating. JTAlert-X (2.9.10, the compatible version) sometimes seemed to not populate the boxes with the decoded callsigns. Not always, but sometimes. Another odd thing was the auto-sequencing ( a new feature) worked well, except for one solitary station that tried to work me twice. In response to his signal report to me, WSJT-X should have replied with my signal report to him. WSJT-X kept transmitting the “RRR” exchange. Every single other one of the 13 QSOs that I had last evening performed flawlessly. Not sure if it was the software or something he had wrong, although I would suspect the latter. We need to remember that this is a release candidate software, not the final, polished software. They’re still ironing out the kinks, and a few glitches are to be expected. Overall, this is a gem of a program.
It’s a learning curve, but worth the effort. Another arrow in the quiver to nail the elusive QSO. My congratulations to K1JT (who, by the way, I worked on FT8 last night) and his crew for their hard work! Well done!
73 and see you on the bands,
Dick N4BC
