Birthday Weekend Fun

 Playing Around With FT-8

So after my initial run with making contacts on Saturday, I went back out that night around sunset and spent more time making contacts.  This time via FT-8.  I have to jump through a few hoops to make this work but it works.  If anyone is interested in the specific on what pieces connected where and with what configurations let me know and I'll write it all up with pictures.  But high level, from my FT-840 I connect it to a Signalink device which then connects to my laptop.  I also have the CAT cable which goes from the FT-840 to my laptop.  Then I use a combination of tools.  flrig as it works best with the radio.  wsjtx to do the actual FT-8 communication, and then Power Logger to track my contacts.  

I jumped back and forth between 20m and 40m and spent about an hour last night and then another 2 1/2 hours or so this morning.  Last night I made about 3 FT-8 contacts one of which was out of Russia.

This screenshot also included the handful of SSB contacts I had made during that session.  Blue are 40m contacts and Green are 20m.   

This was this mornings session.  It's still the hot season here and I finally called it as I was sweating and I was putting the radio to work.   So I packed everything up.  This was a lot of fun figuring all of this out.  What worked, what didn't how to get everything to talk.  There were a couple contests going on like Route 66 on the Air, QSO Parties, and the ever present Parks on the Air.  

I'll be traveling this week for work.  I'll be out in Columbus.  I was going to bring my new portable right but I decided against it.  I really need to spend more time studying for my Extra exam so I'm going to just take a handheld.  I have a cheap Quansheng UV-K5 that I programmed up with the local repeaters there so I will still keep an ear out for activity while I'm there and maybe make a contact or two.  But my main focus during my downtime, and especially while on the flight, will be to study.  

Anyways, I'm sure there are like maybe 1 or 2 people who might look at this blog however if there is someone who stumbles across it and what I am doing is in line with what you are doing or want to do, let me know.  If there are things you want me to elaborate on try let me know.  I'm just having fun and learning as I go.  I think next weekend I'm going to try a different antenna configuration and see what the results are.  

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