FT8 SOTA Day - Sunday 5th January 2020

I get that a lot Richard :wink:

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I’d opt for a all-day event. If we then make an assessment of the contacts done during the day, maybe we can identify preferences for the future?

73 Jens, HB9EKO

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I am interested. Date would be OK here.

Would not split. One whole timeframe or all day long.

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Sounds good!

0700-1000 I will be in bed sleeping as that is wee hours here. My usual MO is to drag-ass on to a summit around 1700 to 2000 =) I shall endeavor to get as early a start as possible in the hopes of getting some EU stations. Later in the day I should be able to work lots of JA/VK if the bands cooperate!

Looking forward to this experiment!

-Josh

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That will be Australian Monday. If this event would take place on Saturday, more likely to hear stations outside of Eu, and better chance for most of us to go to church.

And please consider using ft4 mode. Power saving for activators, and time saving for chasers. I never used alternative frequencies for FT4, but it is the matter of agreement. FT8 basic band is overcrowded during weekends, and it’s less likely to take advantage of better S/N reception.

Serge, rn6k

I’m just a little wary of an all day event in terms of S2S…but certainly in terms of just having chasers on guard an all day event might be the way to go.

Remote operation on FT-8 is pretty easy, so for chasers at work, in bed, whatever an all day event would probably be best if it means more activators.

S2S though I imagine might suffer in an all day event, but I think I favor having set times vs all day.

My own schedule is mostly dictated by the moods of the tiny harmonics day to day, so I can’t promise I can make it to a day with time windows but I think windows vs all day is best and the times seem reasonable.

I wonder if we can also agree to work way up on the band. It would seem that above 2500-3000khz in the band using the standard FT-8 frequencies is allot less crowded but not everyone seems to look there. At least from my area it doesn’t seem like anything is in the way up top…

73,
Tom, N2YTF

Could we make it a SOTA FT-8 weekend then, with some pre-defined windows of time for S2S attempts?

Guys, any updates on next sunday? I see no alerts so far. I just configured my new Pi4 (Pi3 now retired as ADSB RX) and I am ready to test it on air. I am off the whole week so I might do some of the local summits in FT8, too.

Tomorrow Thursday 2nd January 2020, I will be QRV on SOTA with Leif F/LA3DNA/P on F/AM-578 and I will work on FT8 … C U Soon 73 de F5LKW/P

Nice! :muscle::muscle::muscle: I recommend to write it direct into the alert (Freq/Mode) and not only in the text. 1000z is too early for me to be on a summit but I try to catch you from home. Maybe I go on a local summit around 1200z or 1300z. Can you do 7, 10 and 14 MHz on FT8?

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GE John.
Yes !
I will be on the 3 bands and 3.5 Mhz trying QSO with Tom M1EYP/P … may be s2s.
May be we will still on summit when you’ll arrive.
73

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As Roger says, we will be putting on some FT8 SOTA on 80m tomorrow (2nd Jan).

Also yes, we will nominate this Sunday as an FT8 SOTA day.

I will add my alerts now, and encourage others to do the same.

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Okay I have put my alert now. I try to make it but I am not 100% sure. Normally I take resonant antennas with me, but when I go I take my z817 and rise a 7,5m vertical random end fed wire for a quicker bandswitch. With FT8 that should not be a big deal to lose some db.

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Roger @F5LKW and I just had successful S2S on 80m FT8!

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I see you are heard pretty well also in LA. I am running a MagLoop indoors only on 80m. Same on 60. On 40m I have a short vertical outside. If you go up I try again. What is your antenna?

Just worked @F5LKW /P on 40m FT8 from F/AM-578. He was +2 - -10 here QSB and massive QRM due to big stations on 40m.

2020-01-02_12h46_50
Update:
2020-01-02_12h59_24

EDIT:
I am leaving now to DM/SR-012. Will do FT8 only from 1400z but if it will not work I switch over to SSB.

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Hello John.
My eQSL is waiting for you :slight_smile:
Thanks a lot for QSO. Really sorry not waiting for you on summit but I wasn’t alone.
Child and wife were frozen. We had to back down.
73 QRO
Roger

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It was nice to work you. I have even more respect as I was in freezing rain (-1°C) during my FT8 activation from DM/SR-012. In SSB the whole activation would have been much quicker.

Most of the time I operated out of an plastic bag due to the rain:

On 40m I was heard well, also in England, but not takers:

But after 15 minutes there was only one station in the log: S57ILF. In SSB my log would probably have been well filled already. On 30m it was better then. At least 5 stations (HA0HH, R1BBT, @EA7GV @SA4BLM @EA2LU) came into the log. Because it was very cold I skipped 20m and called a few times on 17m. K1KZ came into the log. I was very happy about that. The antenna was just a wire, 7,90m long on my 10m mast. The z817 tuner matched it quite well. I didn’t like the bulky tuner anyway. I just wanted to change the bands quickly with it, but with my resonant antennas I don’t need very long to change them, too. Next time I leave it at home. Overall I was very satisfied with the test today. Here are my QSOs with 5W in around 50 minutes:

I was also heard in California on 30m:

Here are some screenshots from my mobile phone:

Full article and more details about my setup on my website: Raspberry Pi4 for Digimodes like FT8 and others - SOTA tested

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Report via video. Have a good watch + 73 Roger
F/AM-578 (Croix des Béguines)

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Schaumburg in nice wx.