22 Sept 2020

2m FT8 (10W to the big-wheel omni antenna)

Since arriving home from our walk and doing some gardening, I have been on 2m FT8. So far (at 1050z)  40 spots of me in 3 countries and 1 QSO.

UPDATE 1947z:  Now 78 spots of me in 9 countries today on 2m. 5 QSOs. I am convinced that these sort of 2m results are possible with 10W and a big-wheel at any time.  It seems far too common to be due to aircraft. A more probable hypothesis is that this is some other scatter mode that FT8 allows simple stations to access. Somewhere I read that FT8 is about 18dB better than SSB. That is like changing a dipole to a huge beam! Nearly every time I go on 2m FT8 I get spotted in N.Ireland. This is far too random for aircraft surely!

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