The reported death of Amateur Radio due to FT8 is an exaggeration

Foundations of Amateur Radio

In 2017 a new digital amateur mode called FT8 joined the ranks of inventions related to our hobby. Since then it's taken the amateur world by storm, filled the bands with contacts and attracted a strong following among radio amateurs across the planet. Making contacts with low solar cycle numbers has never been so easy.

Together with that following comes a growing chorus of those who decry this addition, the filling of our air with useless noise and it's too easy, not real radio, there's no conversation, who cares about contacts, I want to rag-chew, anyone can do this and it's not right. Clearly some think of FT8 as the end of amateur radio as we know it.

Recently I came across a list of other technologies that made amateur radio too easy and would cause the end of our hobby.

Amplitude Modulation or AM, Semi-automatic CW Keys or Bugs, Vacuum Tubes, Single Sideband or SSB, Radio Teletype or RTTY, Repeaters, Electronic CW Keyers, Transistors, Electronic digital programmable computers, Antenna Rotators, Integrated Circuits, Digital Signal Processing, Microprocessors, the Internet, CW Decoding Software, Automatic Link Establishment or ALE, Packet Radio, DX Clusters, Pactor and PSK.

Of course some of those make current amateurs just shake their head, or laugh out loud. Who could imagine that AM or SSB would cause the end of the hobby, given that they replaced spark-gap transmitters, which incidentally became prohibited in 1934.

As we invent new things - the ARRL referred to FT8 as the Latest Bright Shiny Object in Amateur Radio Digital World - we learn more, have more, do more and expect more. In 1675 Isaac Newton said: If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants.

Every invention builds on the ones that came before it and apart from the banning of the spark-gap transmitter, each of these newfangled baubles has made it into the mainstream of our community, to the point of being ubiquitous. Can you imagine an amateur radio without AM or SSB today?

Using Clublog aggregate data as the source, with almost 30 years of records, in 2002, CW became more popular than Phone for logging contacts. This is on the back of Phone contacts reducing overall as a percentage of logs, against the increase of RTTY, PSK and other modes.

In 2017 FT8 joined the fray and both Phone and CW logged contacts reduced markedly. Interestingly RTTY continues to be used though not at the levels seen at its prime between 2005 and 2010 or so.

As an overall percentage of contacts, FT8 is by far the most popular. 2018 showed that over 40% of logged contacts were on FT8, CW remains essentially stable at 30% and Phone contacts account for 20% of overall contacts logged on Clublog.

What this shows is that amateurs go where the contacts are. When CW worked better than Phone, it became the prominent mode. While CW use stayed the same, and Phone reduced, it was because contacts were being made with PSK and RTTY and other modes.

This doesn't reflect the death of a hobby, far from it. It reflects the pragmatic nature of making contacts. You use a mode that's going to work.

When amplifiers and big antennas were the name of the game, those were the tools being used by our community, but these days, FT8 has levelled the playing field for all comers. In a world where noise is ubiquitous and large antenna farms are possible for a select few, FT8 is making it possible for people to get on air and make some noise.

No doubt some will decry that these are not real contacts and that exchanging a signal report isn't a real contact. Of course it is. It's just a different contact. Just like a CW contact isn't the same as an SSB contact and glorious AM isn't the same as FM, a contact with FT8 is like any other, it's real, between two stations using radio gear.

I should point out that the logging information I looked at comes from Clublog and that in 1990 there were 2.4 Million QSO's logged. In 2018 there were 40.4 million. In the same time CQ WW increased the number of entries by almost 200%. Interestingly, CW logs outpaced SSB logs in 2003, 2006, 2008 and 2016.

On the 31st of May 1897 Mark Twain said: The report of my death was an exaggeration. I think we can safely say that Amateur Radio isn't going anywhere and FT8 isn't killing the hobby.

I'm Onno VK6FLAB