HF Barefoot FT4 and FT8

Working the World with 86 Watts!

It has been 10 months since my first FT8 contact back on 2/15/19. Working HF barefoot in FT4 and FT8 modes. The dedicated Flex 6500 puts out about 86 watts into the CHA-250 vertical.

38 DXCC Entities and WAS

As of today 12/14/19 I’ve made 1,433 ‘FT’ contacts comprised of all 50 US States and the following DXCC entities:

Canada, Japan, Mexico, Spain, Cuba, Belize, Asiatic Russia, European Russia, Australia, Puerto Rico, New Zealand, Canary Islands, Venezuela, Fiji Islands, New Caledonia, Cayman Islands, Argentina, South Africa, Belgium, Ireland, Azores, Hawaii, Samoa, Mauritania, Alaska, Ecuador, Chile, Dominica, Costa Rica, Trinidad & Tobago, Aruba, South Cook Islands, El Salvador, Lesotho, France, San Andres Island, Columbia, and French Polynesia.

Nice Results for Part Time QRP OPS

I’m very pleased with the results I’m getting with the 6500 HF barefoot FT4 and FT8 operations. 1405 of the contacts are in FT8 and 28 so far in FT4. I installed WSJT-X v 2.1.2 on 11/28/19 and find that there is far less activity on FT4 than FT8. Nonetheless I will continue to work it as often as possible.

It will be interesting to see sometime down the line what kind of results I’ll get using the Mosley and the amplifier. The low power (QRP) operation is so much fun, I plan to keep it in place for the foreseeable future.

Perhaps a 2020 upgrade candidate to consider might be an amplifier for the Flex 6500…

WSJT-X implements communication protocols or “modes” called FT4, FT8, JT4, JT9, JT65, QRA64, ISCAT, MSK144, and WSPR, as well as one called Echo for detecting and measuring your own radio signals reflected from the Moon.  These modes were all designed for making reliable, confirmed QSOs under extreme weak-signal conditions. 

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Author: K6HR

Licensed since 1994. Active on HF / VHF / UHF / Satellite.

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