Regarding FT8, it “saved the day” for the PJ4V multi-op from Bonaire in the contest. Lauren Libby, WØLD, Dave N7BHC and I operated from the PJ4G contest station as PJ4V in the 2018 June VHF contest. We had planned to run high power with a M2 6M1K2 amplifier. The antenna is a 7 element LFA yagi at 60 feet from a high hill overlooking Bonaire. Things went well preparing for the contest. Lauren looked forward to running stations on SSB and CW. But right before the contest started disaster struck! The SWR went high on the yagi. We tried different coax connectors, and even checked the yagi on the tower. No luck. But oddly - the yagi still seemed to have it's normal pattern and gain. We used the YV4AB/b as a reference, and it's strength was the same despite the sky high SWR. Dave, N7BHC had a cavity filter which he put in line. With the filter, we were able to tune the SWR down to 1:1 and use the FT-897. But the M2 amplifier kept tripping off. So we were at about 60 watts for the contest. We tried to get things going on SSB and CW at the start – but no replies to many CQ's. But PJ4V was able to steadily put people in the log thanks to the FT8 mode. 6 meters better for us Saturday. It was first open via sporadic-E at the start of the contest to the southeast states, then gradually moved north to W1,W2 and W3. Later in the afternoon it shifted to the west to the Gulf Coast in Texas. We worked the EL58 and EL84 grid expedition stations. One issue we noticed (and noted by many others) was many callers on FT8 were not in “contest mode.” In the contest mode – FT8 exchanges just grid squares. When both people are in contest mode – an exchange may be completed in under a minute on FT8. But if not – I had to manually change the exchange and hope the other station gave their grid. I lost many contacts due to other stations not being in contest mode. Agree with Bob, K2DRH's comments regarding this. Perhaps some people not using contest mode was they were using another Euopean software program for FT8? Finally the opening drifted up to the Midwest and put some W8, W9 and WØ stations in the log. I had good decodes on K2DRH, WQØP and NØLL, but could not complete due to heavy QSB. The Es fizzled out by 0200z. The next day (Sunday June 11) was very slow in Bonaire on 6 meters. Only a couple of North American stations decoded in the morning on msk144, who we had already worked. Lauren and I took the morning off (though monitoring the ON4KST chat page on our phones) to eat breakfast at a great beach side cafe. That afternoon 6 meters opened to Europe and I logged a number of stations in Greece. Peter, PJ4NX and Martin, PJ4X called in on 6 meters and we invited them to visit the station. They came by the shack and we had a nice visit. Both were very curious about the FT8 set up and watched us make a few FT8 contacts. Later Peter and Martin went on to make many 6 meter FT8 contacts the next week. Last contact was with WA1EAZ FN42 near the end of the contest. Decoded a number of New England stations including W2SZ/1, but no success getting their attention. Later found out there was an intense sporadic-E opening between the northeast states and the Midwest Sunday afternoon. DX stations closer in such as VP9I and CM2CSV had better luck. Bonaire is double hop Es from most of North America. Only Florida and the Gulf Coast are within single hop range. We ended up with over a 100 contacts. I was glad we had set up on FT8. Only 4 contacts were made on SSB/CW.

--N0JK