Move over JT65 for a new kid on the block

The digital mode FT8 has caught on, luring many using the popular JT65 weak signal mode. The WSJT-X 1.8.0 beta software has the FT8 mode described as fast with an entire QSO taking about a minute, which is four times faster than JT65. Developed by Steven K9AN and Joe K1JT – the name FT8 stands for its creators Franke and Taylor and 8-Frequency Shift Keying modulation. Using a 15-second transmit…

Quicker-Turnaround Digital Modes in Experimental Stage for WSJT-X Suite

06/15/2017 Recent sporadic-E propagation openings on 6 meters and elsewhere have pointed up the need for a digital mode having faster turnaround time than currently available software versions offer.  (more…)

May 16 update to JT65 HF HB9HQX is now ready for download.  If you haven’t tried this different mode you should give it a try.  It’s like watching paint to dry but once you tried it your hooked.  With the bands not in good shape this is one mode that still can get through in when others can’t.

Calling All Mac Computer Wizards Out There – Help!

Well if nothing else the title caught your attention.  I need some help/advice.  I have been running for months now WSJT 65 software on my Mac computer into my USB Signalink without issue.  Yesterday it was running OK and it suddenly stopped on the outgoing transmission.  Receive is fine.  I’ve checked the preference settings and there OK.  I’ve even reinstalled the software and that didn’t make…

As you have heard me say before just because the various propagation programs say a certain band is poor don’t give up on it.  And so be it, it happened again today for me on 15m.   When 20m is open as it was today (again the propagation programs had it as a write off also) I find I like to try 15m as it’s not so stressful as 20m.  In my situation when 20 is wide open I either have problems…

VE7QCS and Whisper Mode

Fellow DX’ers, I thought you might be interested in this. I’ve been running multiband WSPR for the last few days and notice that the best DX consistently opens between 2-4 am local time on 40m. Below are the spots for my station over 10,000km ranked by greatest distance. All but one of them are on 40m and in this time range. Last night I stayed up until 1 am and managed to work VK1MA on JT65 with…

I’ve been in on sabbatical in Israel at the Weizmann Institute of Science since August. I’ve been lightly operating as 4Z1ML my new Israeli call sign. We live in an apartment on campus, so space for antenna is a problem. In the beginning I was using my buddy stick antenna on 15m and 20m, and sometimes the alexloop on 40m.  Since propagation on 20m has not been great at night, I decided to put a fixed 40m dipole in our porch. 

The porch is about 8m long, so a full dipole is not possible. One evening, I was bored enough and took some copper wire, two water bottles. I coiled the wire around the bottles to make a loading coil. Connected the wires to the base of the buddy stick plate and vuala! got a nice dipole! 

To my surprise, the first time I measured it, I saw that I the resonance was at ~7.400 MHz. Only 330KHz above my desired JT65/9 frequency. Instead of playing with wire lengths, I found a nice trick to get it down to the right frequency. I added some water to the water bottles, and found that the additional dielectric constant within the coil was enough to get it right down to the right frequency!

Here’s a miniVNA trace of the dipole on 7.050MHz

and here’s another one after poring out a bit of water to move it to 7.076MHz

Here are spots received over 2 hours:

and here are spots other received: