New digital mode for amateur radio FT8 / 2017-07-12

This week there was a sudden 'buzz' about a new digital mode for amateur radio from Joe Taylor, K1JT. It's like JT65, with a very minimal exchange (callsign, locator, signal report) but with a lot faster timing: each turn is 15 seconds and from what I can see somewhat more than 13 seconds transmitting. I made the first few contacts today after downloading wsjtx from WSJTX-Development : Greg Beam as Ubuntu package.

They are now in my log, but uploading to eQSL / Logbook of The World is not possible yet as 'FT8' is not seen as a valid mode yet. The solution for LoTW seems to be to change to 'DATA' but this solution does not work for eQSL. I'll have to upload those contacts later when the mode is recognized.

First contact was with IZ8GNR and I also had contacts with club members PA2RG and PD3RFR.

With JT65/JT9 I sometimes get distracted waiting 50 seconds before it's my turn to react again, with FT8 it's more high-speed work (somewhat less than 2 seconds to react to a CQ or an answer). WSJT-X now has an auto-sequence feature which will step through the exchange automatically.