EURAO Party - Autumn 2017: FT8, a brand new mode

The European Radio Amateurs’ Organization announces a new party on the air, this time with the motto: “FT8, a brand new mode“. Remember this is not a contest, it is just a radio meeting with a few simple ‘rules’, better to call them recommendations.

Purpose: to spread FT8 (Franke-Taylor design, 8-FSK modulation), a new mode just launched last summer, designed for situations like multi-hop Es where signals may be weak and fading, openings may be short, and you want fast completion of reliable, confirmable QSOs. It is included in WSJT-X Version 1.8.0 program.

Date & time: December 16th and 17th, 2017, Saturday and Sunday, 00:00-24:00 UTC.

Bands & modes: these are the recommended frequencies (+/-) for FT8: 1.840, 3.573, 7.074, 10.136, 14.074, 18.100, 21.074, 24.915, 28.074, 50.313 and 70.100 MHz.

Call: “CQ EURAO Party”.

Exchange: because this is a QSO event, not a contest, you can talk about whatever you want, in any language, and for as long as you like. Here are some topic suggestions to get the conversation going: name, city, locator, weather, antennas, rigs, etc. callsign, locator and signal report, the only data that FT8 allows to exchange.

Also talk about QSL interchange. Tell the truth. Say “no, thanks” if you are not interested in QSL cards. But if you would like to have a memory of your contact, feel free to use our EuroBureauQSL (see below).

Logs: for statistic purposes only, we ask participants to submit their logs in ADIF format to party@eurao.org, where the filename should be your callsign (e.g. EA3RKF.ADI).

There will be no results or league tables, only statistical information about number of QSOs, countries, callsigns, OMs/YLs/Clubs, etc.

Certificate of Participation: for those sending the log and with a minimum of 10% QSOs confirmed.

EuroBureauQSL: you can use it to interchange QSLs even if you are not member. In this case, just send the QSL to the entry point in the country of contacted station.