+1 for 144.174 for FT8. It seems that that's the frequency where people
are finding each other now.
If anything, this discussion really makes me appreciate how reasonably
well things work on HF. There you have beacons, automatic station, all
kinds of different digital modes (some of them smack dab in the middle
of the SSB portion of the band), digital voice, analogue voice, CW,
contests, nets, non-aligned band plans between various regions, less
space on many of the bands than we have in the weak signal portion of 2m
alone, etc. Oh, and lets not forget that these bands often provide world
wide propagation with a bit more activity than we find in the weak
signal portion of the 2m band that is mostly void of activity at any
given time, has maybe a handful of nets, 15 days or so of contests a
year, people using chat rooms to find each other (including me!), and
more time may be spent waiting for a magic red blob to appear on a map
than calling CQ on the calling channel. It's a wonder we can even make a
QSO on HF with all that chaos going on. ;-)
One could even argue that FT8 should receive priority consideration when
it comes to frequency assignment because it acts like a call channel and
has much better channel utilization than most other modes.
I'm for whichever solution will create the most activity. Right now that
seems be be by staying on .174 instead of trying to establish yet
another watering whole. The well has been dug, let's drink! :-)
73,
--Alex KR1ST (FN21fk)
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