[W5SFA] ARRL FT-8

[Dan White]

FT-8 Contest.


New WSJT-X 2.0-rc5 Beta Version Now Available, First "Serious" FT8 Contest this Weekend,
A fifth "candidate release" -- or beta version -- of WSJT-X 2.0 now is available for download and use by beta testers. WSJT-X Developer Joe Taylor, K1JT, says WSJT-X 2.0-rc5 is stable, works well, and fixes known problems in RC4, the most-recent beta version released in mid-November. A new FT8-only practice session and contest are set for this weekend. 

"It is likely that the General Availability (GA) release of WSJT-X 2.0, scheduled for 2 weeks from today, will be nearly identical to RC5," Taylor said this week. He also announced that a final FT8 "practice contest" would take place on Saturday, December 1, 0200 - 0300 UTC (Friday evening, November 30 in North American time zones). 

The first "serious" FT8 contest -- the FT8 Roundup -- is set for the December 1 - 2 weekend. In the brand-new operating event, radio amateurs worldwide will contact and exchange information with other amateurs using FT8 on 80, 40, 20, 15, and 10 meters. Any station may work any other station. The exchange is signal report and state/province for US and Canadian participants. Non-US/VE stations will transmit a signal report and consecutive serial number starting with 001. 

Taylor also noted that the ARRL RTTY Roundup on January 5 - 6 will, for the first time, permit the use of FT8 as well as traditional RTTY. 

Changes in RC5 relative to RC4 include correcting the "worked before" logic for color highlighting, removing the 5-minute mouse timer, displaying and logging in UTC for contests, improving the layout of Working Frequencies and Station Information tables, and allowing deletes and edits in Fox and Contest log windows.  
      Joe Taylor, K1JT. [Larry Bilansky, photo]
     

"You may need to invoke Settings | General | Colors | Reset Highlighting on your first program start with this version," Taylor said. The Quick-Start Guide to WSJT-X 2.0 has again been updated to reflect the changes. 

The Development Group recommends using RC5 in the conventional FT8 subbands at audio transmit frequencies of 2,000 Hz and higher. The latest beta versions are not backward compatible. Users of version 1.9.1 and earlier will be unable to decode RC4 and later transmissions, and vice-versa, Taylor pointed out. 

"As more users upgrade their software to WSJT-X 2.0 -- and particularly after the General Availability release on December 10 -- the new protocol should start to dominate the conventional FT8 subbands," Taylor said. "As soon as possible after December 10, everyone should upgrade to WSJT-X 2.0." Read more.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://mail.w5sfa.org/pipermail/w5sfa_w5sfa.org/attachments/20181130/264bfd4e/attachment.htm>