My introduction to WSJT

John Geiger, NE»P

In August 2001 my wife and I moved from Davenport, IA to Lawton, OK.  Moving is a chore for anyone, but for Hams it is especially difficult and time consuming. Having to take down and reinstall antennas, setting up a new shack, and getting used to new propagation all add to the difficulty. Our move seemed to be one challenge after another, but within three weeks, I had all of my antennas up and was ready to start tearing up the airwaves.

My first big operating event from the new QTH would be the September VHF contest, which would occur less than a week after getting the 2-meter Yagi up. I was excited to see what VHF activity would be like in the southwest. I would also have to start on my grid chase  for VUCC all over again, and knew that in Oklahoma I would not be able to rely on aurora for some long distance contacts as I had in Iowa. Fortunately, I discovered something else that is a worthy replacement - high speed meteor scatter.

From the QTH in Iowa I had made a handful of meteor scatter contacts on 6 Meters, and had been thinking about getting into high speed CW ever since I purchased a RIGblaster in July of 2001 (best $50 I ever spent, but that is another story).  At the same time I kept seeing postings on the Internet about WSJT mode, but knew nothing about it. Something happened to me while waiting for the VHF contest, and I felt drawn to learn more about this WSJT thing that everyone was raving about.  I learned that WSJT is actually a program, which uses high speed four tone RTTY. The mode is technically FSK441, but almost everyone refers to it as WSJT. I had the Thursday afternoon before the contest off from work, so I downloaded the WSJT software and manual, and started my excursion into high speed RTTY. The best thing is that the software is free, just visit http://pulsar.princeton.edu/~joe/k1jt to download it.

After installing the software, it was time to test it out.  Fortunately it is very simple to learn, and I felt ready to arrange WSJT skeds for the contest. A call over the Internet yielded a sked with Shelby, W8WN at the start of the contest. This was going to be exciting! I was finally going to be on High Speed Meteor Scatter (HSMS). I had worked Shelby on 6-meter SSB meteor scatter before from Iowa, but this was really going to be a challenge.

HSMS is mainly used to take advantage of the random meteors that are always striking the earth.  Most of these meteors are small, and their burns through the atmosphere are so quick, that they support propagation on 2 Meters for only a fraction of a second.  By speeding up the information that is sent, and exchange can be included in this fraction of a second. Now the VHF operator does not have to wait around for a meteor shower to be able to communicate via the rocks. WSJT sends information at a rate of 1800 WPM, so a lot can be sent during a very short ping.  All you need is a computer sound card/transceiver interface, like one that is used for PSK or RTTY.

Contest day arrived, and the sked was underway. I got a couple of nice pings from Shelby, and got both my call and his call being sent, but not enough for a completed contact. It was very thrilling to hear his signal burst out from an otherwise dead band for a second or two. This was not bad for 1 p.m. in the afternoon on 2 Meters. The distance between us was approximately 750 miles. During the contest I discovered the "Ping Jockey" page where skeds are made daily between stations using HSMS (www.pingjockey.net . I did make one WSJT contact during the contest with W7FG, but it was on tropo.

The Monday night after the contest I once again tried with W8WN, and completed!! A 750-mile QSO on 2 Meters during a routine Monday night - not a bad deal. One problem that came up during my QSO with Shelby was that I did not know the transmitting sequences well enough.  It is very important to know what to send based on what you have received from the other station. This tells the other station what you have picked up, and what they still need to send. The Ping Jockey page does a great job explaining these sequences. Make sure you know them before attempting HSMS!

On Thursday of that week I completed a QSO with John, K»PW in EN34, also at a distance of around 750 miles.  Later in the week I had HSMS QSOs with K»AZ in EM27 (both 6 and 2 Meters), N5OSK in EM25, and W8PAT in EN81, which is over 900 miles from my QTH. The next couple of weeks brought more WSJT contacts, and on the morning of 22 September I completed with N8OC in Michigan, and a distance of just under 1,000 miles. I knew that I had found a valuable mode for collecting grids on 2 Meters, and unlike aurora, this mode was almost always accessible. It did not require some special solar event. Also, the weather does not play a role as it does in tropo.  Random meteors are almost always available.

In the first month that I was on WSJT I worked 11 states on 2 Meters, ranging from Colorado and Arizona, to Florida and Georgia, to Michigan and Ohio.  I also learned some valuable information about HSMS, mainly:

1 . A large station is not required.  I am running an Icom 746 barefoot, which puts out 100 watts.  My antenna is a Cushcraft A148-10S, which has 10 elements on a 12 foot boom.  It is only mounted on the roof of my house, at about 22 feet.  I do hope to raise it up higher in the near future.

2. Meteor scatter contacts can take a long time.  Most of these QSOs took around 30 minutes to complete, and 2 took almost an hour. However, I would not have been able to make these contacts any other way, and the time is worth it for a new state on 2 Meters.

3.Meteor scatter works almost any time of day.  Most of these contacts were made in the evening, and a couple were in the afternoon. Meteors may be better in the morning, but MS contacts are not limited to that time.

4.Most importantly, HSMS is a lot of fun. Discovering WSJT has greatly added to my station capabilities on the VHF bands. If you have a computer, a VHF rig, and some patience, I urge you to give it a try also. You will be surprised with what you can work anytime of day on 2 Meters. It is still a thrill to hear a signal burst through the quiet band for a fraction of a second, and then to see your call sign come up on the computer screen from that burst.

I hope this story helps to demonstrate how easy and fun it is to get on WSJT mode.  By the time you read this, the Leonids Meteor shower/storm should be over, and hopefully a few more VHF'ers will have had their introduction to meteor scatter during that shower.  Come and join us on HSMS using WSJT!!