Whenever I see a SOTA Activator using FT8 or FT4 I always look on frequency for them amongst the melee…and more often than not I can - and we make a QSO like I did in the last few miinutes, working Jerome F4IVI/P on F/AM-502 Colle du Macon 1417m, 2 poiints. My offset was 754 Hz.
FT8 and FT4 reception is unpleasant to listen to - mainly because of the numbers of stations operating aon different offset in a 3 KHz bandwidth. The more stations working and calling, the more horrible it sounds. I most often keep my headphones plugged in and on their hook, or I turn the violume so low I don’t hear the “haunting choir” transmitting en-masse
When I’m transmitting its different, the monitor TX audio is independently adjustable to the RX audio on my transceiver, so I tend to hear my own tone if the headphones aren’t plugged in. Its always good practice to plant your TX signal on the spectrum visually using the spectral display, where there is apparently no other signal likely to be competing with yours. However if I have a choice and the spectrum is clear in several places, I favour placing my offset audio between 600 and 800 Hz. I find this range is a pleasant frequency of my own tone to listen in to.
What’s your favourite offset frequency listening wise, if you have one?
I must confess this is something I’ve never considered. I find looking on the waterfall for a quiet area is the most important choice. At the receiver end the software will be looking across the full spectrum so will display any callsigns it hears. Sound is always turned to zero and headphones unplugged.
A different take might be to try a SOTA only activation and work outside the conventional frequency window. This might work for an organised event if there were enough listeners and activators.
^ this
You have to make sure your tx frequency is not being used by anyone…but what if someone in the skip zone is txing on it? Sometimes it helps to change frequency a few times, although the various JT software seems to be able to pick out overlapping signals in a lot of cases.
I prefer using a frequency offset in the middle, around 1500 Hz although everyone else seems to do the same.
If my /P setup is not working properly I’m forced to use ghetto mode (use the built in tablet mic to listen to the radio speaker) so if there’s any breeze I will get a lot of noise on the waterfall from 0-1kHz and won’t be able to reliably decode any signals here.
I’m not sure what you’re meaning here. When I transmit, my audio is automaticaly muted much the same way as when I press the ptt button on my mic, so you may have something wrong in your audio settings. Once you’ve got it set up correctly your problem should disappear. I do agree with you though on looking for a free space on the waterfall. Good luck.
Turning all audio off is a little risky in my case, in FT8/4. Occasionally, but rarely, after my 15/7.5 second transmission stops sending, the TX stays locked on, so I have no receive. It’s probably happened a handful of times in 100s of QSOs this year, so monitoring the TX audio only if I am distracted, alerts me tthat I need to stop the auto PTT from staying on. The only way to do this is to turn my transceiver off and turn it back on again! Closing down JTDX makes no difference. I can live with the problem as it happens so rarely.
My point was nothing to do with my TX AUDIO being muted when sending a data transmission, which like yours, it is. I was just making the point that when I monitor my FT8/FT4 tones on transmit I have a preference to listening to certain frequencies which are kinder to my ears, 600-800 Hz, which is also the frequency I prefer to listen to when taking CW. I was just wondering if other operators have a preference for other frequencies. As others have said, quite often it isn’t possible to monitor at your preferred audio frequency if there is a nice clear space showing on the waterfall elsewhere, when if you transmit there, you may have more chance of success getting through .
, making traffic more pleasant 
