☰ Rogue Valley Amateur Radio Club

April 5, 2018 Club Meeting

Thursday, April 5, 2018 at 7:00 PM New Red Cross Building, 1050 Crater Lake Ave, Medford

Program: FT8 and WSJT-X, John Laybourne, W8WOM

RVARC is moving our meeting location to the new Red Cross facility. 1050 Crater Lake Ave. (east side), between Spring St. and E. McAndrews Rd. in Medford. About 6 blocks from our previous location.

FT8 is a new digital mode that has become very popular very quickly. It is much faster than the older JT65 mode, operating on a 15 second cycle rather than a 1 minute cycle. It retains much of the flavor of JT65 (brief pre-canned exchanges and synchronous transmit / receive cycles). WSJT-X is the free program that implements both the DSP software and a nice windows interface. WSJT-X also implements quite other modes which are optimized for different applications, such as meteor scatter and very weak signals.

John Laybourne, W8WOM. John is an active contester and DXer in the Rogue Valley, and is also currently active on new digital modes.

Announced in the April 2018 issue of The Repeater.

Meeting Notes

From the May 2018 issue of The Repeater.

RVARC Minutes 2018-04-05 meeting at the New Red Cross Building, 1050A Crater Lake Ave, Medford. Program: FT8 / WSJT-X

Meeting was called to order at 7:02pm by RVARC President Allan Taylor, K7GT. About 23 members and guests were in attendence.

Regarding plans for Field Day, volunteers are needed. Mike, WB6FFC and Darrell, N7CZX said they will participate, and asked for more folks to help out. Allan said that one of the old CW crew has moved out of the area, so the need is great for more hams to get involved on the CW side.

Mention was made of the club giving a $300 donation to the Red Cross and a note of appreciation for their hospitality.

Allan, K7GT, may have a table at SEA-PAC, Jun 1-3, so contact him to see if you can get in on the action.

The CARE club will be participating in the Pear Blossom Parade, Apr 14. Contact: Nikki, KI7LUD or Darrell, N7CZX

A club planning meeting was set for Apr 10, 7pm at N5EG’s house.

There was news of a new AREDN mesh node operating up on Mt. Baldy, KE7MVI-NSM2-BLDY-N, and another test node soon at the Manor, KG6POV-NSM2-3.

The Treasurer reports that the bank balance is $5105.04 plus $75 in petty cash, before the future check for $300 to the Red Cross, Attn Joe King, at 1050A Crater Lake Ave.

Scott, NA7OM, said the club swap meet could be at the Scala cafeteria this year. Bring tables. Allan, K7GT, said we might consider two swap meets per year, in spring and fall. Mike, WB6FFC, asked: what about a swap meet at Field Day?

Allan, mentioned a possible 2M antenna contest.

Regarding 7QP plans, there was no resolution.

The meeting took a break at 7:21pm for coffee and cookies.

The presentation began at 7:42pm: An FT8 demo on WSJT-X by John Laybourne, W8WOM.

The WSJT-X/FT8 setup needs a radio, an audio-to-USB interface and a PC.

The WSJT-X program features:

  • All platforms: Windows, Linux, OS X, …
  • Rig control for nearly all modern radios
  • Error-free communication (minimal QSOs)
  • State-of-the-art decoders
  • Decoding at S/N = −20 dB and below…
  • Accurate frequency calibration

Best results are from transmit powers from about 5 watts to 100 watts. Higher powers can cause ghost echos.

For the demo, John was running about 100 watts to a mobile antenna in the parking lot. The audio interface was the SignaLink integrated USB sound card by tigertronics.com, located in Grants Pass, OR. It can be can be found at HRO or ordered from the Tigertronics web store. Cost is about $130.

Contacts could be made at a rate of about 60 per hour.

See these resources online for all the details:

“Accurate timing is quite important for FT8: if your computer clock is wrong by more than a second or so, you will probably experience problems.”

After a good question & answer session, meeting adjourned at 8:41pm

John, KF7UMK, Secretary.

Tags: meeting

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