Worked All Germany 2020 Contest Certificate ... that was fun!

 

No More Funny Transmission operations on HF for SV5DKL!

I guess most of you are well-aware of my views on FTx modes, set back in early 2018:

https://sv5dkl.blogspot.com/2018/04/sv5dkl-statement-regarding-ft8-amateur.html

I had quite early stated that on Dec. 31st, 2020 I'd make my last FTx communications on HF, and I kept my word!

Since the initial release of these time-synced modes, and the rapidly growing popularity they gained among everyday HF DXers and casual HF operators, due to their simplicity and already great level of automation, thus making the "QSO" procedure easier than copying a file from one folder to another, it was just a matter of time before high profile awards, like the DXCC, the WAS, the WPX, but also the lower profile ones, lost their prestige.

On the other hand, the cashiers of awarding organizations started experiencing increasing money flows, which led to even more marketing of FTx modes. Nowadays, it is not uncommon to tune around the Amateur HF bands, and finding no signals other than Funny Transmissions, with one's RX s-meter peaking s9+.

We have to be fair. FTx modes attracted not only new hams, or even the more experienced ones, but also brought back the interest to the ones that had abandoned our hobby for years. This can only be considered as a plus.

I'll stick to the opinions mentioned in my post from 2018, pointing out that the initial purpose of the modes supported by the original developers suite, was the Weak Signals, and work for VHF/UHF and higher, in particular.

Yes, these modes are *just* what is needed to experiment and test the various propagation modes on that spectrums. But, stocking "QSOs" with them on HF bands, that could otherwise be possible with the classic, more humane modes, such as CW or SSB, finds no place in my books.

Moreover, it is now obvious that many new hams, who have entered our wireless world and directly fell into the Funny Transmissions pandemic,  are more or less, technically incompetent and lack some very basic skills an Amateur Radio Operator is supposed to exhibit.

Where is this leading us as Radio Operators? I leave this as food for thought, for everyone.

I've fully automated my FTx operations, from the beginning till the end. With custom coding, lots of filtering options, smart algorithms to avoid "broken" or "lost" QSOs, always having in mind station safety - avoiding TX with high VSWR, online ALC level control, and others. Then, I let the system fly by itself, working completely unattended, while I was enjoying life, and it worked flawlessly till the end. 

But, there's no point in running an expensive amateur radio station round the clock like this; it gave me no joy; it stopped being a hobby and I came to the point of losing interest in my shack. I just checked my FTx Robot's performance each day, and that's that!

So, here we are, getting back into "sanity road", and waving goodbye to all Funny Transmission modes on HF. You will only find SV5DKL on the air onwards, in CW, SSB and RTTY, not only in contests, but in casual everyday QSOs.

Here are some facts about the performance of my unattended, FTx Robot operations, till 31.12.2020:

 

ALL OF THE ABOVE "ACCOMPLISHMENTS" REQUIRED JUST 1 HF TRANSCEIVER RUNNING AT 45W, A 3EL. TRAPPED 10-15-20 YAGI, AND AN INVERTED-L BASE COUPLED FOR THE REST OF HF BANDS ... IN JUST 2.5 YEARS ... WITH NO HUMAN INTERACTION. MORE THAN ENOUGH FOR AN AVERAGE OP, RIGHT?

LET'S ALL PROTECT OUR ALLOCATED HF SPECTRUMS, BY INVESTING MORE TIME ON HUMAN MODES, SUCH AS SSB AND CW. THEY ARE MORE FUN, ANYWAY.

IN THE END, EVERYONE IS FREE TO ENJOY OUR HOBBY BY WHATEVER WAY ONE FEELS FINE WITH, LET'S JUST NOT FORGET THE SKILLS AND TECHNICAL BACKGROUND WE'VE ACQUIRED OVER TIME, AND WASTE THEM, MAKING THE CLASSICAL MODES OBSOLETE.

73 & CU ON AIR

Stathis, SV5DKL

DARC Team SES 2020 Award

 

CQ WPX SSB 2020 Certificate

 

WA-EU-10 Bands Diplom - 1st ever 10 Bands awarded!

 

DXCC Statistics - July '20 Update

After a couple of years, it was time to update my DXCC Statistics for my

current (SV5DKL) and my old (SV1DKL) callsigns.

Below are my cumulative, LoTW only, confirmed DXCC Statistics, as of 

13 July 2020:

While my SV1DKL totals haven't improved significanty, I've had better results

with my SV5DKL call. Taking into account also my paper QSL cards, DXCC 

Challenge points are 2565 as of today. 

I have to point out, that my SV5DKL DXCC Challenge points include a mere

23 points of FT8 or FT4 contacts, that I don't consider valid anyway, due to the

inhuman & purely pointless nature of these modes, and therefore, am not 

interested in claiming them as credits for my DXCC totals.

I proudly confirm that all my awarded DXCC credits until today, come from 

QSOs made in SSB, CW and RTTY.

It's a really hard way onwards, aiming for DXCC HR and, even worse, DeSoto

Cup!

FT8 / FT4 Robotic QSO Software New Version is now available

Hoping that the Dev Team will stabilize, with regard to the software version available, here is the latest FT8 / FT4 Robotic QSO Software version, designed
for the, currently, latest version of the American-made Suite, found on eBay:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/153997781917

DIG European Prefixes Award (EU-PX-A)

2128 prefixes can't be that bad, eh?

DARC DLD 900 Diplom - 20m Mixed

Worked All Germany 2019 Contest certificate

DARC DLD800 20m Mixed Diplom

ARI DX 2018 Contest Certificate

DARC VOTA Awards complete !!

With the following Awards, DARC VOTA program has been completed for me.
Gold and Platin classes have been very hard to achieve, but it was quite a joyful event anyway.

 

Europa Diplom Honor Roll - 2018

DARC's Europa Diplom Honor Roll has become kind of an institution for me, so I
try every year to reach a high result to compete with the "usual suspects" in Germany.

Here's what I've got for 2018:

See you in the final top rankings ;-)

73

Stathis, SV5DKL

The best way to take the virginity of a brand new Contest Call !!

Pure Silver !!

A couple of new ones through DARC's DCL

 

 



Another new Record for Dodecanese (SV5) !!

SV5DKL - Statement Regarding FT8 Amateur Radio Mode

Rhodes, Dodecanese, GR

17th April 2018

 

STATEMENT REGARDING FT8 AMATEUR RADIO MODE

as included in WSJT-X Software Suite

by Stathis Maliakis, SV5DKL

 

Dear all,

Amateur Radio Service is a technical and experimental radio service. On the basis of exploration, innovation and experimentation, WSJT software suite development group, led by Dr. J. Taylor, K1JT, developed several digital modes, most of them requiring accurate time-syncing between two correspondents' computers to operate properly, with minimal exchange information needed for a 2-way QSO to be considered complete. Main purpose of WSJT development group was to provide new modes, destined for Weak Signals work, especially for VHF frequencies and higher. Weak Signals are signals that are, most of the times, inaudible and are discernible by WSJT software, even a couple of dozen decibels below receiver's noise floor.

In mid-2017, WSJT-X freeware software came out with a new, innovative, fast, digital mode called FT8, heavily relying on PC2PC handshake half-duplex communication. FT8 is now widely considered a very good digital mode for experimentation, with regard to the main purpose of the development team.

FT8, due to its speed, performance and ease of operation, quickly attracted masses of hams, particularly on HF bands, and was (and still is!) thoroughly supported by a large number of organizations, such as ARRL, Clublog, eQSL.cc, Digital Amateur Radio Clubs, National Amateur Radio Unions, individual hams, etc. 

FT8's initial popularity was such, that just over a month after its appearance, was accepted by ARRL's LoTW and FT8 QSOs began being valid for ARRL's Digital DXCC Award Programme. Nowadays, several other award issuers and contest organizers accept also FT8 QSOs. FT8 and its future forms will be with us for many more years to come. Ham Radio is evolving in parallel to technology and perspectives, along with its operators. 

FT8 operation through WSJT-X software suite already supports almost 100% fully automatic operation, by enabling "Auto Seq" and "Call 1st" options in the main window, for a station that is only calling CQ. An operator is only required to initially start 1st CQ transmission, and at the end of a QSO, just to click once to log the QSO data, and again, to click once more, to re-enable TX, so as to continue with the next CQ call. 

IMHO, this availability tends to make a human operator obsolete. The "human touch" given with these 2 mouse clicks (or taps!) required, had better not been there at all. To me, it's obvious that this "human touch" is there, just to pay respect to US FCC's Part 97 and related regulations, that prohibit leaving an automated digital station operating unattended, under certain provisions. However, this is not the case in all countries' legislation ... 

Ultimately, it was just a matter of time before curiosity, ambition and the joy of experimenting would lead to fully automatic operation, by bypassing these 2 steps.

A number of well-known stations, from Slovenia, New Zealand, Germany, UK, Croatia, had already tampered with the source code of the open-source WSJT-X software project, compiling their own versions, running their FT8 "hambots" 24/7 on HF/VHF bands.
 
On that same basis of exploration, innovation and experimentation, but with respect to WSJT development group work, I managed to set up a fully automatic, working unattended, FT8 CQing Robot, not altering the original source code in any way, using a 3rd party application that is very powerful with macro commands. It was really so easy !! After having tested it for approx. 5 months, the results were pretty astounding. 13500 FT8 QSOs were made, with no human effort, just with one transceiver, just with 40 Watts out. 153 DXCC countries were worked, 139 already confirmed in eQSL & LoTW. Well, that wasn't fair! Thoughts emerged of someone running multiple hambots to multiple antennas, simultaneously, DXpeditions requiring less operators (so less costs), due to having 24/7 tireless operators in a laptop, accomplishments made with no real effort ...

It was just outraging. And all of those bot QSOs would count as anything for awarding, etc., in particular for one's DXCC Digital.
 
That is the main reason I've decided to publish a tutorial on how to set up such a FT8 Robot, in order to show it is so easy & doable, challenge others to get it and take it steps ahead, and prove that there really is no need to award performances, such as two computers handshaking. Note that in my tutorial, I never urged anyone not to adhere to their countries laws or regulations, by usage of such system. Also, note that in SV, automated, unmanned stations are perfectly defined  in our Amateur Radio legislation, in definition of "Station", under clause 6.4 

Of course, growing attraction to FT8 required a measurement of one's accomplishments. Absolutely understandable. That should be done on a separate principle, and not mix it up with the rest of non time-synced, digital modes. Or, not do it at all and keep it for experimenting only. IMHO ... 
Here's the link to said tutorial video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=byJyxYi4I8Q

WSJT development group reacted to this, by inserting in WSJT-X development code, between 5. and 7. February 2018 (Sourceforge commits #r8457 to #r8468), a blacklist statement for my personal callsign (SV5DKL), which if released, would prevent me (and only me!) from using FT8 DXpedition mode. Here are the links:

 
1.      https://sourceforge.net/p/wsjt/wsjt/8457/
2.      https://sourceforge.net/p/wsjt/wsjt/8458/
3.      https://sourceforge.net/p/wsjt/wsjt/8463/
4.      https://sourceforge.net/p/wsjt/wsjt/8468/

An official response to why & how this occurred derived from Dr. Joe Taylor, K1JT, himself, through Sourceforge's WSJT mailing list: 


https://sourceforge.net/p/wsjt/mailman/message/36294070/ 


What I realized out of this is that the distance from social behavior to anti-social behavior is just 2 mouse clicks (or taps!) away ...

Having given some thought about how this issue has evolved and given the following facts:

1.      FT8 is currently the most popular amateur radio mode worldwide 
2.      WSJT development group, led by K1JT, is putting some serious efforts and resources in WSJT-X freeware, open-source project
3.      I can never have a fair confrontation with a Nobel laureate scientist
4.      I am considered a "menace" for FT8, by the development group
5.      ARRL has already issued too many award credits for FT8 QSOs, for their DXCC Digital Award Programme 

I   H A V E   D E C I D E D

 

1.      There will be no more public challenging of WSJT-X developers from my side, regarding FT8

 

2.      My tutorial video on how to set up your FT8 Robot will remain on Youtube under public access

 

3.      There will be no further posting or criticism regarding FT8 performance from my side

 

4.      I will continue to work silently towards further AI automation procedures in FT8 operation, in particular with DXpedition mode

 

5.      SV5DKL FT8 Robot will continue roaming HF/50 Mhz bands. Whenever you work it, rest assured it's a Robot

 

6.      I will provide whatever technical help I can to any DXpedition that may wish to have a fully automated FT8 DXpedition mode FoxBot (or more)

 

7.      No further assistance will be given to individual hams who want to set up a FT8 Robot. The tutorial video is a very straightforward guide to start with it

 

8.      WSJT-X source code will never be altered during my experimentation

 

With compliments,

 

Stathis Maliakis, SV5DKL

Electrical Engineer

QM, MSc. (2020)

Estonian Republic 100th Independence Anniversary - Awards