In this episode of the No Nonsense Amateur Radio Podcast, Tom, KB5RF, and I explore the exciting developments in the FT8 world and speculate on what’s going to happen in the future with this very popular digital mode. There are lots of FT8 resources on the net. Here are some that we mentioned in this episode, plus a few more for good measure:
- FT8 Basics
- New FT8 Modes
- FT8CALL
- Miscellaneous
Steve W8SFC says
I have the rookie question/s of the week – if FT8 is limited to 13 character strings per transmission, how exactly does this threaten phone mode QSO’s in amateur radio? I also question the value of this mode in regard to emergency communications because of the structure of and the limited content of FT8. I can understand it’s attractiveness to contest oriented hams, and it apparently has appeal to those using computer based interfaces, but I still think there is much to be said for phone or CW for real critical information exchange in comparison to FT8, or am I missing something here? It just seems to me that having to send larger volumes of detailed information this way within the structure of FT8 as it is, would be very tedious if not impractical.
If FT8 is killing amateur radio, why hasn’t packet data digital communications been considered a threat to amateur radio? After all, packet radio has the potential to communicate a more robust variety of information and in less time than it would take for the same messages or volume of data to be exchanged on FT8, and packet technology began in the 1960’s in the computing industry decades before internet computing was even in it’s earliest form. As far as I know, packet radio has not been the death of amateur radio either.
Steve W8SFC says
(A few hours of reading and viewing later)… Ahem* After further research I have changed my opinion regarding this subject somewhat. It seems that FT8 Call will handle more detailed communications needs and do so quite well. This however, is not FT8, nor is it pure digital like packet radio. With solar minimum conditions in effect hams can still QSO back and forth with minimal transmission power world wide at times like the present where band openings are a rarity if ever proposition. I am not ready to declare digital mode comms superior or the end of ham radio, but as the video points out these modes allow world wide contacts when conventional over the air ham radio is not able to have such global reach.