What is FT8?
FT8 is a digital mode of operation for radio systems. One of the major benefits of FT8 is its ability to work with very weak signals. FT8 allows for 13 characters to be exchanged per message. This mode is most frequently used as part of a simple exchange of locations followed by an exchange signal reports. Signal reports are given as a signal to noise ratio (SNR). If you’re looking to exchange more than just signal reports, you may want to check out JS8Call, which is based on FT8 but is used for more complex text-based exchanges.
Does my radio support FT8?
Many radios support FT8 “out of the box”, such as my Yaesu FT-710 and my ICOM IC-705, however some radios require an additional interface such as the DigiRig to add this capability. For example, I use a DigiRig Mobile with my Yaesu FT-857D to add digital capability.
Setting up your Radio
I will be releasing tutorials that cover the specific configuration of the radios that I have access to (Yaesu FT-710, ICOM FT-710, and the Yaesu FT-857D with a DigiRig Mobile), however the general steps are similar for many radios.
Connect the Radio to your PC and configure the COM port. On my FT-710 this involves using a USB-A to USC-B cable (commonly called a “printer cable” these days) whereas with my IC-705 it requires a USB-A to USB-micro cable. As this will be communicating with the radio it’s best to use a high quality and short cable, and it’s likely a good idea to add a couple of ferrites to the cable, especially if you experience lockups whilst transmitting.
You may need to install drivers for your radio, for example ICOM offers drivers for the IC-705 here and Yaesu offers drivers for the FT-710 here. Once you’ve installed the drivers, you radio should show in Device Manager under “Ports (COM & LPT)”, for example my ICOM IC-705 shows up as two devices “IC-705 Serial Port A (CI-V)” and “IC-705 Serial Port B”, each with a COM ports number, for me that’s COM5 and COM6 respectively, but yours will likely be different. I have WSJT-X configured to use COM5.
Configure WSJT-X to Connect to the Radio. This will involve telling WSJT-X about the settings that your radio requires for its communications, most likely this will involve setting at least the COM port to use and a Baud Rate. For some radios this is configurable, such as on my FT-710 this is found under Func > Operation Settings > CAT-1 Rate, and the default is 38400. Whereas on the IC-705 there is no setting on the device, and I’m told it will automatically adjust to what it receives – but I also have this set to 38400. For all of my radios, I have the PTT method set to CAT and the mode set to USB. For split operation I it set to “Rig”.
Getting Started with WSJT-X
In the screenshot on the left you can see the main interface for WSJT-X, although at start up you will find it also opens up the Wide Graph interface. This interface is effectively separated into four quarters.
In the top right quarter you will see the incoming signals, I have this set to “CQ Only” which is my preference, although by default it will show all incoming decoded messages. You will see for my interface all lines are coloured either light blue or green.
You’ll likely see different colours, and probably more colours. I have highlighting enabled within the settings which changes these colours from the defaults (You can enable this with: File > Settings > General > Show DXCC, grid, and worked-before status). The way I have my WSJT-X setup is to show which stations I have worked before, meaning that new countries are highlighted in purple, new stations are highlighted in blue, and stations that I have worked before are shown in green.
I also have “Double-click on call sets Tx to enable” set, so that I only have to double click a CQ call in the top left quarter to begin transmitting to that station. The top right quadrant shows the frequency that I’m currently listening to, so when I begin transmitting to a station the communication will appear in this quadrant. You can see some messages highlighted in yellow, these are outgoing messages that I am transmitting. You will also see some messages highlighted in red, these are messages that contain my callsign.
A relatively typical exchange can be seen in the screen snippet on the left. Here I spotted a station that was in a new CQ Zone for me (which WSJT-X highlights in orange). So I double-clicked the CQ call to begin transmitting to that station.
You can see that my first transmission includes the target station callsign (HI8WJI), my callsign (2E0IKA), and my location (Maidenhead Grid IO83). Interestingly here you can see that two stations respond to me, the target station HI8WJI and another station OZ7DR. This is not uncommon, especially if you have recently called CQ yourself, as stations may respond to that call for quite a while – however, I’ve also seen many times where stations will “speculatively” message you, to see if you respond – I assume they’re looking for stations in my country or CQ zone so they’re just chancing a contact.
The station I am trying to communicate with started their message with my callsign, then their callsign, then their signal report to me as a signal to noise ration (SNR). They gave me a signal report of -11. That’s not a bad report, anything higher than -18 should be easily workable, however anything below that may be difficult. Signals coming in below -23 will be very difficult.
Here you can see that I responded with the target stations callsign, my callsign, and their this format “R-24”, which simply means “Roger your signal report, I am receiving you as a -24 signal”. As I said, -24 is a very difficult signal. As they’re reading me -11 they likely heard this respond, but I did not hear their reply. So my station continued to send their signal report and you see this R-24 message repeated four times. Different stations will repeat a missed message a different number of times, it’s common to see stations repeat a message 3 or 6 times before breaking off and going elsewhere if they don’t hear a response.
However, you can see that I transmitted the message four times before I hear the other stations response “RR73”. Another common message to receive at this stage is “RRR”. These messages effectively just communicate that the signal report exchange is complete, you can think of this as “I roger your roger, and best wishes” – as in, I have received your signal report and am completing this exchange. I simply reply to this “73” and the exchange is complete.
I have my WSJT-X set to prompt me to log exchanges, so at this point I will see a menu that allows me to log the exchange – you can enable this with File > Settings > Reporting > Prompt me to log QSO, or manually by pressing the “Log QSO” on the left hand side under the top left quadrant. Once I’ve logged this QSO, any messages from that station will show in green, to show that I have worked that station.
Messages are exchanged in 15 second windows, so whilst I have walked through the “steps” of a QSO above, in reality each message out would take 15 seconds, and between transmissions my radio would pause for 15 seconds waiting for (and decoding) any replies.
What’s the point of FT8?
FT8 and the related protocol JS8Call both offer one major benefit, extremely weak signal propagation. Whether you’re operating on low power, in a noisy environment, or with a compromised antenna, FT8 can get your signal out there. However, it’s a “QSO only” protocol and stations expect to exchange locations and signal reports only, and then move on.
This is very useful for people who are working on project such as trying to reach the furthest station they can or trying to contact all countries within Europe. As well as people doing POTA activations. As all you may care about is making contact.
However, if you’re looking for a more conversational experience, JS8Call is likely what you’re looking for. It offers the weak signal benefits of FT8 although allows you to exchange text-based messages, so you can go further than a signal report and exchange information about stations, your situation, or whatever you want.