‰ NOW 40 WPM ‰ OTHER WWV FREQUENCIES AND MAY BE MORE ACCURATE ON THE HIGHER FREQUENCIES. I HAVE BEEN USING 15 MHZ LATELY BECAUSE THE SIGNAL HAS BEEN VERY STRONG. ALSO, I HAVE FOUND THAT I DO NOT ALWAYS NEED THE SCOPE. I HAVE CONNECTED MY FREQUENCY COUNTER TO THE AUDIO FROM THE TRANSCEIVER AND IN BETWEEN TONES, WHEN THERE IS NO VOICE, THE FREQUENCY COUNTER READS THE HETERODYNE FREQUENCY VERY ACCURATELY. IF THE TRANSCEIVER IS ON FREQUENCY, I CAN TUNE TO 10R000R500 AND READ 500 HZ ON THE FRE TECHNICAL CORRESPONDENCE FT8 VS. RTTY AND UNIQUE FREQUENCY CALIBRATION FT8 IN THE RTTY ROUNDUP RECENTLY, IVE SEEN AND HEARD A DISTINCT CHANGE IN THE DOMINANT DIGITAL SOUND CARD BASED MODE ON THE HF BANDS. THERE HAS BEEN AN ALMOST COMPLETE ABSENCE OF RTTY SIGNALS UNLESS THERE IS A RTTY CONTEST AND THERE ARE FEWER PSK31 QSOS. I ONLY HEAR THE MFSK, OLIVIA, AND THOR MODES DURING NARROW BAND EMERGENCY MESSAGING SOFTWARE NBEMS NETS PASSING TRAFFIC WITH FLMSG/FLAMP. OCCASIONALLY, I HEAR THROB ON 80 METERS. THE WINLINK MODES PACTOR, WINMOR, ARDOP, AND VARA WERE SET UP TO PASS RADIO EMAIL BETWEEN TWO LINKED STATIONS OFTEN UNATTENDED AND ARE NOT USED FOR CASUAL KEYBOARD QSOS. THE VERY POPULAR PSK31, WHICH HAS BEEN THE DOMINANT KEYBOARD DIGITAL MODE FOR THE PAST TWO DECADES, IS BEING REPLACED BY FT8. FT8 QSOS CAN BE COMPLETED IN UNDER 2 MINUTES AND OPERATE WITH FAR LESS POWER AND SIMPLER ANTENNAS THAN RTTY, COPYING STATIONS THAT ARE FAR BELOW THE AVERAGE NOISE LEVEL. OCCUPYING THE SAME BANDWIDTH AS BPSK31 50 HZ, FT8 IS THE OPTIMUM CHOICE TO GET MORE STATIONS INTO YOUR LOGBOOK. CONTEST MODES WITH THE ADVENT OF THE ARRL RTTY ROUNDUP CONTEST ON JANUARY 5 6, 2019, I WONDERED HOW MANY DIGITAL STATIONS WOULD BE OPERATING USING FT8 INSTEAD OF THE MORE SEASONED RTTY OR PSK31 MODES. THE NEWEST VERSION OF WSJT X V 2R0R0 MODIFIED THE TRADITIONAL FT8 MODULATION STRUCTURE WITH 77 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 40 WPM TEXT ‰ QST DE W1AW ƒ