The Revolutionary Digital Mode
FT8: The Revolutionary Digital Mode Transforming Amateur Radio M7ENP Amateur Radio Blog ``` FT8: The Revolutionary Digital Mode Transforming Amateur Radio TL;DR: FT8 is a weak-signal digital mode that has revolutionized amateur radio since 2017, enabling global contacts with low power and compromised antennas. It uses 15-second transmit/receive cycles and can decode signals 10-15 dB below the noise floor. What is FT8? FT8 stands for "Franke-Taylor design, 8-FSK modulation" - a digital weak signal communication protocol that has taken the amateur radio world by storm. Joe Taylor (K1JT) , a Nobel Prize laureate, and Steve Franke (K9AN) released this mode on June 29, 2017, and it rapidly became the most popular digital mode within just two years. FT8 is designed for making reliable contacts under challenging conditions including: Low solar activity periods ...