You (Just) beat me to the announcemeny Ron!
Here’s the link I got in my email:
https://sourceforge.net/projects/wsjt/files/latest/download?utm_campaign=updater&utm_medium=email&utm_source=subscribers
TYPICAL - I just updated my tablet to RC3 last night, now I’ll need to upgrade again!
73 Ed.
Getting back to the message sequence for a moment: it seems clear that we do need to allow for sending the summit ref during the message sequence. S2S FT8 contacts will not work unless both parties can send a summit ref.
CQ G4TGJ IO93
G4TGJ N1EU FN32
N1EU G4TGJ -5
G4TGJ N1EU R-2
G/NP022 RRR
W2/GC001 73
At last!
"This is the full General Availability release of WSJT-X Version 1.8.0.
Changes from WSJT-X Version 1.8.0-rc3 are very minor:
73,
Walt (G3NYY)
You could try putting the SOTA ref in message 5 and add 73. If both do that you have completed and exchanged summit info. You may have already seen the other guy giving his reference and have it on screen so you don’t need it a second time…
73
Ron
VK3AFW
Yes, interesting suggestion although that would dispense with the “RRR” altogether. So there’s an implied “R” with the final SOTA ref 73 message. I do really want to limit the entire exchange to 3 xmsn’s by each party.
I set up two radios/computers side-by-side transmitting into dummy loads. It’s possible to do a 3 xmsn (each side) QSO with the last message being SOTA ref 73 but it requires the CQ’ing station to manually click on the Tx5 button to force xmsn of SOTA ref 73 as the 3rd xmsn. Without the manual click, the computer will first send the Tx4 RRR message and subsequently the SOTA ref 73 msg on the following xmsn.
73, Barry N1EU
Since FT-8 is already too easy a mode, I figured we may as well try make it easier[*]. I’ve just pushed an update to RBNHole to monitor the PSKReporter website and post spots for JT-65 and FT-8.
It is currently inert, meaning no spots are posted yet. I want to give it a bit of time to bake in with real world data. As such, if anyone is planning an FT-8 or JT-65 activation over the weekend, could you let me know via a PM here so that I can monitor to see if you would have been spotted. If I’m comfortable it’s no spammier than RBNHole, I’ll make it live.
Same rules as per RBNHole, need to have an alert posted, frequency lockout within 2.5kHz, time lockout with 10 minutes between spots, same window (-1/+3).
Other data modes could conceivably be added too, of course. We should also perhaps consider changing the name to either Automatic Spot Submission Hole (for US folks) or Automatic Reporting of Spots, Etc, Hole (for the Commonwealth folks). I like naming things after myself 
Cheers,
Andrew
[*] Actually, I’ve been thinking about it on and off since Ed suggested in earlier in the FT-8 threads.
Hi Andrew, I got the meaning of the abreviation of the words used but my proposal would be to change the name from RBNHole to RyanSpot - to reflect the fact that you are putting so much work into it.
73 Ed.
I’m not even remotely that narcissistic, Ed, but I appreciate the sentiment.
N
Hi Barry,
Another iteration.
SOTAref (without slashes or dashes) space RR73
The RR73 is an accepted standard ending of a QSO. If the SOTA ref is longer than VK3VC001 then dropping one R should be OK.
Of course if we had some extra bits in the message then the FT8 MT could do something to help. I think that the best we could hope for at present is to be able to send CQ VK3AFW SOTA QF22 but that depends on whether the guys have something else in mind for the currently unused bits associated with the grid square coding.
73
Ron
VK3AFW
Hi Andrew,
There is a good argument for ranking modes in order of ease of use as follows:
Phone - FM, SSB, Digital voice, AM. Good when signals are good.
CW- as simple as phone once you have learned the language. Good when signals are weak. Simplest gear.
Digital Modes, including FT8. Fast decision making sometimes required, contains some typing and other computer use skills. Good when you can’t hear any signals. Most complex gear.
As with most things, you get back in proportion to what you put in.
73
Ron
VK3AFW
I don’t understand Ron - how can you transmit 19 chars? I thought 13 chars was the limit.
73, Barry N1EU
Hi Barry,
Ooops. My apologies.
You can exceed 13 characters, but not quite as I typed. Sorry my brain increasingly has disconnects and I make mistakes I don’t notice. What I should have typed, which is different is
CQ SOTA/VK3AFW QF22
I’ m sure I posted this and some other suggestions before along with the acknowledgement that the average bear might also get confused if they have not heard of SOTA. And there are a lot of very average bears on FT8.
If you want to see what you can send, type the text in message 5. You have to shut the rig down and let the program transmit so you can see what is viable - the TX text will show in the RX window if the right boxes are ticked…
The FT8 program has shorthand methods of sending some elements such as 73, hence you can send VK3ZLP VK3AFW RR73, which is 18 characters, as a routine thing. Having a fixed format is also helpful for minimal coding but does impose some restrictions.
I’ve yet to figure out how to send my call and the SOTA Ref in the same message.
Unfortunately no response to my request for replacing the Grid Square in some transmissions with XOTA where X can be S, J, I, L, all common activities where FT8 would be useful.
Maybe it’s too hard or considered plain silly.
73
Ron
VK3AFW
Will that work? It’s over 13 characters and I don’t think it will be able to encode that as a callsign.
13 characters is the limit for free text. Normal transmissions exceed 13 characters as a matter of course. See example below.
Don’t take my word for it, it’s all explained in the manual.
If it sends it it decodes it.
All explained in the manual.
Same place covers callsigns and prefixes and suffixes and the limits of the inbuilt logger.
73
Ron
VK3AFW
I understand how it encodes callsigns and so can exceed the 13 character limit. Reading the manual suggested to me that it couldn’t work, but indeed it does. However, it doesn’t allow SOTA/G4TGJ/P - that has to be encoded as free text with a 13 character limit.
There isn’t a single FT-8 alert (or JT-65 for that matter) in the list. Anyone?
Correct, A 4 character prefix is acceptable.
Your country might come up as “where?” in the comments section but otherwise it is decoded as sent.
A reasonable assumption is that a station calling CQ SOTA is portable so the /P is redundant. I understand some prescriptive regulators might not like that so you would have to figure out what works for both of you.
The SOTA Reference has to be consigned to free text in message 5. Well that’s as far as I can tell and what I’ve done.
73
Ron
VK3AFW
Was someone activating using FT8 on or about Nov 12 12:20 UTC? A spot was attempted (but the PSK features are still inert) and I’m trying to work out who that might have been (need better logging 
)
I am hoping to do an FT8 activation tomorrow from W2/EH-001. Not sure if RBNHole is monitoring digi yet, but this might be a chance to find out.
My biggest challenge is getting the portable time sync working consistently using TomTom bluetooth GPS receiver and BktTimeSync software so that WSJT-X is synchronized. I also discovered that the KX2 heat dissipation characteristics make it a questionable digi-mode radio. The KX3 is slightly better in this regard and I suspect the Yaesu 817 is better than both. So going for the lighter weight radio isn’t always the best decision.
I’m planning on just using standard FT8 messaging format and frequency. I have no idea if there are really many (any?) FT8 chasers out there.
73, Barry N1EU