On the 20th of March, I tested the 20260320 version of Decodium “Shannon” to see how “Fast Track 2 “performs”. Later tests were done between the 27th and 30th of March. The first test failed. I ran two instances of the software, using Virtual Audio Cable to route the audio internally. Spectrum Lab was used… Continue reading »
About a week ago, Joe Taylor posted a message about the FT2 “developments”. Citation: Compared with FT4, “FT2” is significantly less sensitive, needs twice the bandwidth, and has far more decoding failures caused by timing errors. The mode is hardly usable without full (or nearly full) automation. We have no plan to add a twice-speeded-up… Continue reading »
Having read the introduction of Decodium, as being “the fastest” mode, my first take was “too good to be true”. Physical laws cannot be broken. So let’s have another look at things. Popularity PSKreporter has a statistics page, which shows the number of spots received. A snapshot taken on March 10, 2026 shows that the… Continue reading »
A priori is a Latin phrase which – in the context of FT8 etc. – translates to prior knowledge. This article aims to explain what a priori decoding does. It also discusses how AP relates to a “valid QSO”. A little paragraph is dedicated to to information theory. The article also illustrates that AP is… Continue reading »
What the… are hash collisions? What has it to do with FT8? This article explains that the FT8 protocol can confuse call signs and the software seems to behave erratically. What is a hash? In short, a hash code is a number, usually calculated via bit operations. Hash codes are widely used in data storage… Continue reading »
Last weekend, New Zealand issued permissions on a trial basis to operate on 60 metres. That was very good news, first of all for the ZL ops who had been waiting for this opportunity for a very long time after the WRC-15 results came into force January 2017. It is hoped that this will lead… Continue reading »
FT8 has been around for some time now. It was adopted fast by the amateur radio community and it is clear that FT8 overtook JT65 quickly. But is it an improvement? It has to be said that Franke and Taylor (FT) have done a tremendous job with the development of various weak signal modes and… Continue reading »
Currently, I am working on a paper regarding propagation on 60 metres. Transmissions with JT mode were used to collect spots and create datasets. A valuable datasource is wsprnet.org, to which WSPR spots are uploaded and fed to a database. The data can be downloaded. In order to support the study, I developed a WSPR… Continue reading »
One of the latest developments is a parser/analyser for the ALL.TXT files that WSJT-X and JTDX create. The ALL.TXT file contains all sent and received messages and as I wanted to have a tool to retrieve the data in a structured way, I decided to write a parser. It is made in Visual Studio 6…. Continue reading »
I promised to report a comparison between JTDX and WSJT-X. Well, JTDX is the winner. I have been using is for several weeks now and I would not revert to WSJT-X.