‰  NOW 30 WPM  ‰  TEXT IS FROM MAY 2019  QST  PAGE 62 ‰

BITS REPLACING THE OLDER 75 BITS TO ALLOW THE USE OF FT8 FOR CONTESTING.  I
SPENT MUCH OF THE RTTY ROUNDUP COMPARING THE NUMBERS OF RTTY, PSK, AND FT8
SIGNALS ON THE 80, 40, AND 20 METER BANDS.  TO MY SURPRISE, FT8 SIGNALS
WERE SOMETIMES THE DOMINANT MODE DURING THE ROUNDUP.  RTTY STATIONS SEEMED
TO SPREAD OUT OVER MORE THAN 30 KHZ OF EACH BAND, WHILE THE PSK31 AND FT8
SIGNALS TENDED TO CLUMP INTO A SMALLER 3 KHZ REGION OF THE DIGITAL BANDS.
FIGURE 1 SHOWS AN SDRPLAY RECEIVERS RF SPECTRUM DISPLAY OF 40 METERS
CAPTURED AROUND NOON ON THE SUNDAY OF THE RTTY ROUNDUP.  I WAS LOOKING AT
THE DOMINANT PART OF THE 40 METER DIGITAL BAND, FROM 7050 7095 KHZ.  AS
SEEN IN THE IMAGE, THERE WERE SOME RTTY STATIONS PARALLEL TRACKS AROUND
7050 AND 7065 KHZ AND ABOVE 7090 KHZ.  THERE WERE TWO DISTINCT GROUPS OF
FT8 STATIONS THOSE ABOVE 7075 KHZ WHO WERE PROBABLY EXCHANGING NON CONTEST
QSOS, AND THOSE ABOVE 7080 KHZ WHO WERE LIKELY PARTICIPATING IN THE
CONTEST.  THE 7080 KHZ FREQUENCY WAS SUGGESTED BY JOE TAYLOR, K1JT, IN THE
JANUARY 2019 ISSUE OF QST.  YOU CAN TELL THAT THESE ARE FT8 SIGNALS BY THE
2 SECOND GAP EVERY 15 SECONDS IN THE WATERFALL DISPLAY.  I MANAGED TO MAKE
‰  END OF 30 WPM TEXT  ‰  QST DE W1AW  ƒ