RADIO ARCALA SALUTES JOE TAYLOR, K1JT AND THE DEVELOPMENT TEAM OF FT8 MODE ON HF PLUS ACTIVATE 4M MS FSK441 AND 60M

MARKET REEF, OJ0BH/OJ0JR QRV: 12th–19th August 2017
Tuning the poor 20m band month after month represents a major frustration nowadays. Particularly on SSB, only the occasional DX signal breaks the sea of noise, consequently reducing activity levels even further. However, that very noise could be a new lease of life, if one were to copy signals below it. They are there every day. Indeed, with their huge antennas and state-of-the art receivers, DXers can dig even deeper into the noise and log plenty of good DX faster than one can think.
Martti, OH2BH/OJ0BH, and Henri, OH3JR/OJ0JR, will attempt to land on Market Reef this Saturday PM, weather permitting, and will immediately break the noise floor by getting FT8 QSOs underway. They will also hand out the OJ0 multiplier in the Worked All Europe DX Contest (WAEDC) and appear on a variety of traditional modes in the event of any available audible propagation. This is the week originally dedicated to a youth expedition to Market Reef, and to releasing options for selected 2018 DXpeditions, involving both youth and seasoned DX groups.
Demonstrating Amateur Radio to today’s youth thus sports a new booster shot, raising their potential interest to new heights.
A beta release of WSJT-X, version 1.8.0-rc1, included a new FT8 mode, featuring a faster turnaround, and it’s already a major breakthrough on the HF bands. FT8 offers “sensitivity down to –20 dB on the AWGN channel,” and contacts 4 times faster than JT65 or JT9. An auto-sequencing feature offers the option to respond automatically to the first decoded reply to your CQ.
https://physics.princeton.edu/pulsar/k1jt/Release_Notes_1.8.0.txt

Also this year again we had a nice stand in Hal A1, the temperatures were mild compared with the last years so it were nice days again at the Hamradio.
Jan DJ5AN/PA1TT made sure there were enough cookies, coffee, tea, beer and soft drinks to serve the guests and members at the stand.  Conditions were made ideal for new members to enter the EUDXF. Although the cashier prefers paying via the bank account (in the EU-zone this should not cause extra cost for the members) a decreasing amount of members still uses the possibility to pay at the Ham radio their yearly fee of 25 Euro.

Again a lot of people visited the stand to get something to drink and have a talk with the team and famous Dx-ers. This year we could welcome 10 new members. Next to hams from the western part of Europe there were some hams from Asia and specially from Japan. The exact list and the introduction off new members you will follow on our webpage.  With your membership you all help us supporting more DX-Expeditions.

Special thanks go to the team members who helped me with the stand: Nicoletta (XYL PA0R), Hans PB2T, Margreet K2XYL, Jan DJ8NK, Ron PA3EWP, Achim DF3EC and Alex PA1AW. Also we thank Peter PA1PE who drove the trip down to Friedrichshafen with me and helped building up and breaking down the stand.

Jan  DJ5AN /  PA1TT
Stand Manager EUDXF