FT8 Adventures

Unusual for me, haven't posted for a few days, have been having fun getting to grips with JTDX and GridTracker. It seems my mess of an antenna is getting out and best so far are The Dominican Republic and Trinidad and Tobago. Have 121 confirmed contacts, slowly getting there, Alan! Have pretty much got every country in Europe, so am really happy with that.

One thing that does annoy me is hams replying then dropping you after a message then going straight on to something better, had a couple of those.

10m is not working for me, too much noise, and it disconnects my internet, 17m strangely disconnects my USB keyboard, that aside am having fun on the other bands, makes taking the licence all worthwhile.

Hi Mark,

Glad to hear you doing so well with your new licence and enjoying the rewards that FT8 digi-modes can bring.

As for Hams 'dropping' you it may be worth hanging on for a bit to see if you get an eventual response from the first contact. Sometimes stations can be flooded with calls and do their very best to answer all in turn or systematically and may eventually get back to you. (I have this happen often and patience is key.) I only tend to give up and move on or else try them again if they restart a CQ cycle. QSB (signal fading) and propagation effects can come and go quite rapidly!

Always worth checking PSKReporter to see how far your signals are going out.

10m is a very quiet band usually (local QRM aside) when there is little propagation so if it gets 'noisy' it's often worth hanging around for some action.

I think you may need to address some RF feedback issues from your antenna setup with some kind of Common Mode Choke if your transmissions are affecting your other equipment so much. My antenna is just above me in the loft but the introduction of such alleviated all and any problems. (Like you I used to lose internet whenever I transmitted on 10m at first.....let's hope you aren't knocking out any neighbours!)


Have you performed your EMC calculations yet?

https://rsgb.org/main/technical/emc/

https://rsgb.org/main/blog/news/gb2rs/headlines/2021/12/03/new-web-based-rsgb-emf-calculator/

Often worth it to avoid any situations and also compliance of your license let alone cover your butt should you get a 'knock at the door'.


Have fun.  


All the best,
Victor

As Victor said you have an RF issue.
I knock my internet off on 40m but if i move the PWR slider down and slowly one click at a time bring it back up i am ok one click after every transmission that is.
I do get some good distance on 10m but location and all that come into play i think well on all bands
A m8 of mine 18 miles as the crow fly's from me can be getting loads and me nothing and another day it's me getting loads not him.
I love the mode and often run ft4 getting some good contacts on 10m with that.
30m at this time of day i get the USA like shooting fish in a barrel.(my m8 hates that he can't work 30m lol)...

13oots2 wrote:

Unusual for me, haven't posted for a few days, have been having fun getting to grips with JTDX and GridTracker. It seems my mess of an antenna is getting out and best so far are The Dominican Republic and Trinidad and Tobago. Have 121 confirmed contacts, slowly getting there, Alan! Have pretty much got every country in Europe, so am really happy with that.

One thing that does annoy me is hams replying then dropping you after a message then going straight on to something better, had a couple of those.

10m is not working for me, too much noise, and it disconnects my internet, 17m strangely disconnects my USB keyboard, that aside am having fun on the other bands, makes taking the licence all worthwhile.

As Victor said, chokes at antenna and one just as coax enters shack.

Put ferrites on all leads.

Get some snap on 43mix and wind on a few turns on USB and power leads.
If you have to buy extra long USB cables so ferrites can be put on both ends.

I have done this on my setup and 100watts HF just 7metres away is no problem.

Best USB cables I found are Lindy screened ones, they do various lengths and types.

Welll! I haven't had much luck over the past few days, it seems the internet and keyboard problems were unrelated. 3 of my USB ports have failed on my motherboard and the internet was a faulty faceplate on the wall.

To round it all of had to install Windows about 30 times before it did what I needed with some old hardware. The bad news is I lost my 138 contacts on FT8 as I didn't have a chance to backup JTDX as all my USB's were non functional after an update

Moral of the story backup your FT8 software on a regular basis.

Sorry to hear of your hardware and software issues Mark. Might be a good idea going forward to get your contacts uploaded to one of the cloud based logging platforms like LotW, QRZ, Clublog, Station Master Cloud etc etc either real time time, or manually at the end of your radio session by uploading your adif. Nothing is 100% safe, but uploading to one two or more of those reduces the risk of losing the info for good.

13oots2 wrote:

Welll! I haven't had much luck over the past few days, it seems the internet and keyboard problems were unrelated. 3 of my USB ports have failed on my motherboard and the internet was a faulty faceplate on the wall.

To round it all of had to install Windows about 30 times before it did what I needed with some old hardware. The bad news is I lost my 138 contacts on FT8 as I didn't have a chance to backup JTDX as all my USB's were non functional after an update

Moral of the story backup your FT8 software on a regular basis.

Back ups are a must with anything pc wise.

I don't back up WSJT-X as such but once a month I copy the all.txt and start a new one.

My actual log is Hamradio Delux and every time I shut down it backs up to my Onedrive.
Plus I can download LOTW and still have the log.

Ain't computers fun...NOT!

Sorry to hear about your IT woes there Mark.

I'll have to echo Neal's suggestions as far as cloud based data and I upload all my FT8 contacts regularly on QRZ. Mind you I also back up my ADIF files regularly on an open file USB stick should the worst happen and saves me from shelling out for a QRZ subscription.

Back when I first started a couple or so years back on an old (2007!) PC I ran Linux to try and keep up with everything but eventually got lucky after my missus gave me her laptop when she finished her test-&-trace job. A modern laptop and Windows 11 have been quite the revelation.

Don't beat yourself up too much about losing your logs.
It might become a pain when someone refuses to contact you again on FT8 because according to their own logs you've already made contact but some are quite accommodating. I put a message up on my QRZ page for a while when I lost my first logs explaining as such and regained as well as reconfirmed a lot of contacts I initially made that I remembered. (Some still flatly refused to answer though?!?)

At least your IT problems have been now rather than back when you took your online exam!

(I panicked like mad on my exam when I momentarily lost audio!!)


I wish you the best with any progress you make.

I have it sorted now, installed to an SSD that is independent to Windows, will make backups of backups to my storage drives. Once a week, I will upload to Google Drive as an off-site backup.

Am still having fun with FT8, even got our Alan on 30m a couple of days ago. I saw it was from North Wales and put out a couple of CQ calls, was really pleased with that. Am Now up to 126 confirmed QSL's, shame I lost the first 138. QSK reporter showed me as heard in Australia, Tasmania and China the other day, so my setup is getting out there

Am saving up for my dream Icom 7300 and will be 75% of the way to a second hand one next week, another month should see me there.

20m still sees me with a buzz on my headphones despite me using a dirty balun, have bought a load of snap on ferrites to see if that cures the problem.