I may be wrong but I don’t think FT8 contains the parallel information that phone and to an extent CW carries. Just a couple of words heard when tuning across a QSO and I can tell that it is Tom or Andy, wind noise in the mike and I know that they are having a rough time! The background may contain the gronk of a raven and suddenly I’m back in the mountains! If I listened to them more often on CW I would likely recognise them by their wrist, a bit of ragged sending and I would guess that they are having a rough time. This is why I love phone and respect CW, but digital ain’t for me - at present that is, I’m not in a straight jacket!
I guess I don’t see how working 100 contest stations on FT8 (or whatever mode u choose) helps promote SOTA.
Non-SOTA Contest Ops could care less about SOTA or the summit u are on, regardless of the mode. Wham…Bam…thank you Mam…and on to the next station. Most contesters are not likely to join SOTA.
My contacts will be in support of SOTA, advancing SOTA, and helping to encouraging others to join SOTA. This is a SOTA event, as has been said by the MT. This is not a contest. Nobody in SOTA looses…everybody wins.
Whoever calls me I will work, but my score for this event will reflect my actual SOTA contacts made… from whoever calls me on any band, like I have always done.
OK…enough ranting…soooooo…
This should be a fun event, just like the 12 Meter event was.
73
Pete
WA7JTM
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I don’t expect contesters to rush to take part in SOTA because they heard SOTA stations call them. Maybe, some people doing FT8 (<other digi modes exist>) will be intrigued and look into SOTA. but it will be a small number.
The advantage for an activator working FT8 or contests stations is more people to have a QSO with and so more worthwhile to be on the air on 10m. But there’s another advantage to that and it’s for chasers. If they know that activators will be on the air there’s a chance they will get to work them as they know the activator may be doing search & pounce on the contesters but they’ll will spot and call CQ at some time in the activation. So the more activators activating for whatever reason, the more chance chaser can chase them. I’d have been out playing in the ARRL contest today if the rain wasn’t like a monsoon and if my back wasn’t giving my grief (I have aggravated my slipped disc from 2015 though just walking and being active has done wonders in 6 days).
I expect the majority of my contacts, will be like you, with SOTA people and I too intend to have fun.
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I love CW but I just started building a high-bands QDX. My silly idea is to bring that, a Windows tablet, and a 10m dipole up summits for FT8 while I work CW on other bands with a different radio, SO2R as the contesting folks say.
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To make things lighter, instead of a Windows® tablet - there are now some Smartphone FT8 apps you might want to take a look at. At least for Android phones - not sure about iPhones.
73 Ed.
Hi Roy, you seem to be suggesting the tablet/10m-rig could and will make FT8 QSOs automatically while you simultaneously make CW QSOs on other bands.
I’m not bothered or particularly interested in how many 10m QSOs other activators make in 2024. For me the 10m challenge is a personal challenge (i.e. to make more 10m QSOs in 2024 than I’ve done since I was first licensed in 1969).
But, if FT8 has this automatic capability, then the point I was making to Tom @M1EYP and others in Part 1 of this topic about FT8 vs other modes is only reinforced and IMO would make a mockery of any 2024 10m league table.
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It’s just as well there’s no league tables.
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No, this would not be any more automatic than conventional FT8. I’d just be running regular WSJT-X. With my slow-ish CW and the long periods built into FT-8 I think it would work OK to just look over at the tablet and tap appropriately every 15-30 seconds. Far less challenging that a normal SO2R contesting operation.
I have heard of people running some modified software to have automatic FT8 but I don’t know much about it. That seems unethical and possibly contrary to the terms of the amateur license.
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Andy, are you saying there will be no way people can see how many 10m QSOs other activators make in 2024?
A league table by definition is
“a list of the competitors in a league, showing their ranking according to performance in a particular season”
and in our case for league we mean association.
As explained in the initial announcement, the challenge tables are ordered by callsign in alphabetical order. So you can see other’s scores but they are not ordered by who is best.
That’s a disingenuous reply. You know better than anyone that one can make a ‘league table’ (call it what you like, don’t give me any more semantics!) from the Activator Roll of Honour selecting ‘band’ and ‘year’, ‘all modes’, and one or all associations.
So, the MT might not create a specific league table for the 2024 10m Challenge and quite rightly discourages others but the competitive types among us will.
Look up the definition of league table and you will find it always means a list of participants ordered by results. We do not have a “league table” we have a “table of scores”. It’s specifically not ordered by results based on the input the MT got when it asked about challenges. The overwhelming input was “we don’t want SOTA to be a contest”.
You are right, the competitive types will make their own tables so they can be top. But the MT are not doing so.
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It’s had it in an updated port of WSJTx for a LONG time Andy. I thought everyone knew that?
It’s not in the “official” (WSJTx) software as far as I know and not in the SmartPhone apps either.
73 Ed.
Not worth arguing over, League Table VERSUS Table of Scores. Let’s see how it works out.
As for SO2R FT8 running in the background, a decent CW op could easily glance across and see the QSOs logged as they run through, and who wants to listen to the FT8 choir droaning away. Its not worth getting bothered about dual mode operation, albeit I wouldn’t want to operate that way.
I’ll give 10m CW a try from EA8 hopefully from a few summits in February when I am there. Winter Bonus sunshine and warmth if I go high enough up…
73 Phil G4OBK
Why would you presume that? Many of us have never used FT8 nor know its detailed capabilities. I recently heard about FT8 Robot which apparently gives FT8 a fully-automatic mode.
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Once I get my recent gear problems sorted out, I will try to make some QSOs in 2024 on 10 meters, phone only since FT8 bores me stupid, and I can’t do CW. Why will I do this? - simple, to see who’s on the band, to see if I can contact anybody on the band, and generally have some fun on the band. You can keep your league tables, but it will be nice to see a band other than 40m, 20m appear in my logs.
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Great. I can just see this being used to automate SOTA completely: kit out a robot drone to land on a summit and get the FT8 activation points while the operator snoozes in his car in the carpark below. Perhaps have the robot solar-powered and on legs to keep within the spirit of the rules?
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The MT isn’t that daft Rob, the GR makes it clear that it is where the operator is that counts, the car park would have to be in the AZ and even then the activation would be illegitimate unless he got out of the car!
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As I’m still fumbling around in my radio apprenticeship I’m keeping things simple and will try 10m though it’ll be SSB or FM. I rather enjoy hearing the voice of my contact. Morse intrigues the musician in me and I can see how a CW Operator could have a distinct “voice” as I hear the nuances of pace, timing, “note” length and so forth. Learning it feels daunting but I’m sure it will come with practice. My mind is a little closed to the digi-modes. I can see their technical advantages, particularly to the competitive mind, but I rather like the organic aspect of the signal being formed by the voice/fist & radio and little else, even if it can be less reliable.
I’m sure experience will colour and adapt my views. Now where’s my hair shirt, this nylon stuff just doesn’t itch properly……
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It’s called a joke, Brian. A JOKE… Probably doesn’t appear in the MT Handbook.
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