FT8 Information
Started using FT8 on Xiegu G90, with WSJY-X software on Windows 10 Dell laptop.
Will also be using on MacOS Sequoia. (see below for setup issues).
Here is a absolutly legendary vidoe by Ham Radio Tube (Mike K8MRD) about installing and configuring WSJT-X
Tutorial Master Class
Got FT8 working today, these are my contacts from today. Longest on 6887 miles to Africa! Most of these are me answering CQ, a few are me initiating CQ. two on 20m, four on 15m and 14 on 10 meters.
Xiegu G90 at 20 watts with POTA Performer, radials at 180 degrees (north and south) and feedline coax from east.
Contacts on January 16, 2025
Installation issues on MacOS Sequoia.
The WSJT-X readme advises some setups to setup the Mac properly. However, the instruction for setting shmmax fails. After poking around the internet and looking at
groups.io WSJTX, I came up with the following shell script, named
StartWSJTX.sh
#!/bin/bash
sysctl kern.sysv.shmmax=52428800
sysctl kern.sysv.shmall=25600
open /Applications/wsjtx.app
Which I run as follows:
$ sudo StartWSJTX.sh
POTA Performer Antenna SWR
The SWR images from 6-20 meter POTA Performer antenna.
Antenna built using radial segments lengths from KB9VBR YouTube
video
The Chamleon 17 foot whip was set to quarter wavelength for each band.
ChatGPT solves antenna matching problem
After several days of reading EZNEC tutorials and countless web searches, I decide to ask ChatGPT for detail instructions to match an antenna to coax feed line. I needed to know two things:
- What kind of device to construct
- How to construct the required device
Warning: the following pages are informative; they are NOT pretty!
ChatGPT network solution
Station tranmitter power also affects the required power ratings for the components used in a system. This calculation is nowhere to be found in any online material! ChatGPT to the rescue!
ChatGPT power solution
Satellite Passes
The PDF and WAV files on this page are occasionally updated when I notice a pass I want to track.
My location is in grid square EM78.