On 7/23/2019 5:45 PM, rjairam@gmail.com wrote:
I suspect a lot of those who are using the FT8 mode are not really the
ones who were using CW and SSB before.
Bright people will find the best way to do things, and if the objective
is to work weak signals, and to work those in rare locations who don't
have CW skills, modes like FT8 can be a better way.
Folks east of Chicago are really spoiled -- a look at PSKReporter or
DXmaps almost any day during E-skip season on 6M shows how good you have
it. You have multiple strong single-hop openings between areas with high
population density, so SSB works fine. But it doesn't when I want to
work those same high population density areas -- I need a LOT more noise
rejection than I can get from SSB. Until FT8 came along, I worked almost
all CW in VHF contests. My last CW QSO on 6M was three seasons ago, a
VE6 who took two years to send me the card for his rare grid.
One thing that WOULD help restore CW on 6M, especially for me and others
with a P3 spectrum display (which is limited to 200 kHz max width),
would be to move the FT8 frequency to around 50.27 MHz, because that
would allow me to monitor the CW frequencies while working FT8. This is
something that the League Can, and SHOULD do. With FT8 on 50.313, I can
monitor for SSB, which I don't care about, but not CW.
73, Jim K9YC
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