Received from Ray WR5AY:
FT-8 Monday’s
The North Texas Microwave Society is holding an FT-8 informal net on
2 meters (144.174 USB) starting about 7:30 p.m on all Monday’s. There are
some folks on the air prior to that for tuning and band condition checking.
This is all done to hopefully increase traffic on 2 meters. I have used it for the
start to my VUCC for 2 meters.
This does require a radio setup that can do FT-8 on 2 meters. A
horizontal antenna is preferred but any antenna can be used to get on the air. I
use a home made horizontal loop like this:
https://www.sharkclub.org/links/antennas/2m-ssb-loop/2m-loop.htm
It is on a push up pole near 30 foot AGL. 200 plus mile long contacts are not
hard with it. Some others use beams. Beams are great but not a requirement.
Their web site is: http://ntms.org/
More information on other informal nets for 222 and 432 is there.
I just wanted to get this information out to more folks to se if anybody else
wants to do or can do FT-8 on 2 meters.
A great place to check FT-8 propogation is:
https://pskreporter.info/pskmap.html
Fill in the blanks: 2M, signals, sent/rcvd, anyone, blank, ft8, 15 minutes.
Last week there were two guys, one in Austin and one in Houston, that made
contact with Florida during our net time. I tried but propagation did not make
it for me.
73’s
See you on the bands.
WR5AY
WR5AY@yahoo.com
Here’s the PDF file Ray distributed: FT-8-Mondays