I’ve blogged about FT8 several times now, and while I found it to be an interesting mode, I kind of lost interest in it. I haven’t made an FT8 QSO in at least a month. Now, however, there’s a mode—called FT8Call— that has the weak-signal characteristics of FT8, but still lets you send more than just a grid square and a signal report.
According to the FT8Call website:
The idea with FT8Call is to take the robustness of FT8 mode and layer on a messaging and network protocol for weak signal communication on HF with a keyboard-to-keyboard interface. FT8Call is heavily inspired by WSJT-X, Fldigi, and FSQCall and would not exist without the hard work and dedication of the many developers in the amateur radio community.
I decided to give it a go this morning.
Downloading the program was easy enough, but you have to download it from the files section of the FT8Call groups.io group. And, to do that, you have to join the group. The website says that the downloads will eventually be available from the website, though.
Installation and configuration was pretty smooth, too. I used the same parameters that I used for the FT8 program and it was talking to the radio in no time. As with the FT8 program, time syncing is very important, so make sure that your computer is time-synced properly.
Actually making contacts is a bit different than using FT8. For one thing, contacts aren’t automated. Because you can actually share information over FT8Call, you actually have to read what the other op sends you and compose a reply.
Another difference is that a message often uses more than one fifteen-second time slot. I didn’t really get this right away, and unfortunately, goofed up my first contact. The Send button will tell you how many time slots are needed to send your message, and give you an indication of which time slot is currently being transmitted.
There are lots of things that I still need to explore. For example, there’s a whole menu of “directed” message that you use like macros when talking to another station. There are also user-defined macros.
There are also AUTO functions, which the program has borrowed from FSQCall. This feature allows users to send commands to other stations, such as asking for a signal report from a station that has also enabled the AUTO function. For example, to get a signal report from W1ABC, I’d send:
KB6NU: W1ABC?
and if W1ABC has enabled the AUTO feature, it would send back the signal report
W1ABD: KB6NU SNR +04
Cool, eh?
All of this is still in the beta stage, but I really like what’s been done so far and can’t wait to see what they come up with in the future. I think this is the start of something big. Kudos to Jordan, KN4CRD, and the rest of the developers.